Jurors began deliberating Friday afternoon in the case of a 40-year-old Lynwood man accused of attacking and raping elderly women during a string of break-ins and robberies that gripped Long Beach last year.
Melvin Earl Farmer Jr. is accused of sexually assaulting a woman in her 60s and a woman in her 90s during the alleged crime spree between Feb. 2 and Feb. 9, 2017.
Most of those crimes happened at a senior housing complex near Atlantic Avenue and Via Carmelitos, according to authorities. As police searched for a suspect at the time, they warned older residents to look out for someone who would knock on doors and then force his way in.
Police sent out this security camera footage at the time.
During Farmer’s trial this week, Deputy District Attorney Christmas Brookens presented jurors with DNA evidence, security camera footage and eyewitness accounts she said tied Farmer to the crimes.
One woman described hearing screams at the senior complex and then seeing Farmer run past her on Feb. 2, 2017. From the stand, Artina Hilan said the screams were from an elderly woman who’d been attacked and had her cell phone stolen.
“She was on the floor and she had her hands over her face and she was crying,” Hilan said.
In a 911 call played for jurors, Hilan asks for police to chase down the man she saw running away.
“He hit an older women,” she tells a dispatcher as the woman moans in the background. “She’s laid out on the floor.”
Farmer’s attorney, Marc Gibbons pressed Hilan on whether she actually saw the attack. She said no but insisted she got a good look at Farmer. She identified him from a photo lineup shortly after the incident and picked him out in court on Thursday.
Farmer is charged with 14 felonies including sexual battery by restraint, dissuading a witness, assault, robbery, elder abuse, two counts of rape, three counts of residential robbery and three counts of burglary.
Update: Authorities Identify Female Accomplice Linked to Recent Violent Robberies
One of the sexual assaults happened before the spree when Farmer attacked a 24-year-old woman on Jan. 20, prosecutors alleged.
Farmer could face life in prison if he’s convicted, according to authorities.
Police said they arrested Farmer on Feb. 10, 2017, after getting a tip from someone who recognized him from security camera footage.
Investigators also alleged Farmer had an accomplice. Sophia Yim, a 33-year-old Lynwood woman, was charged with helping him with one of the burglaries and one of the robberies on Feb. 9, 2017.
She pleaded no contest on July 5 and is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 6, where she could face up to six years behind bars, according to court records.