4:00pm | Today, a 45-year old Long Beach man was sentenced to 433 years in prison and 11 additional life sentences for six assaults and robberies in Long Beach and Hawaiian Gardens. Each of Charles Juan Proctor’s victims were women, two of whom survived having their throats slashed. Jurors deliberated just two and a half hours after a five-day trial that ended in conviction on August 13.
“Justice has been served,” said Carol Rose, the Deputy District Attorney who prosecuted the case out of the Long Beach Branch. Rose spoke to the lbpost.com this afternoon.
“I couldn’t ask for more,” she said. “Well, I did ask for more but I think this is an incredibly fair sentence. The victims will certainly feel some sense of satisfaction by the sense that he was essentially maxed out.”
Proctor was convicted on August 13 of five counts of robbery, three counts each of kidnap for robbery, false imprisonment and burglary, two counts each of attempted murder and mayhem, and one count each of attempted robbery, attempted kidnap for robbery, assault with a deadly weapon and assault.
His attacks focused on women who were alone and working in shops. Four of the attacks occurred in downtown Long Beach in late April 2008, followed by one similar attack in Hawaiian Gardens. He slashed the neck of one woman who suffered a four-inch wound and stab wounds to the neck and head, and the next day slit the throat of another woman, both of whom survived. Proctor was also ordered to pay $57,790 for the victims’ medical expenses and $10,000 to the state victims’ restitution fund.
“It’s fair to say that all of them have been emotionally distraught by this, that they have nightmares and new fears they’ve developed. But the fact that he’s put away will certainly help them with their healing process.”
After four previous assaults in just a few short days, Proctor robbed and kidnap a woman in downtown Long Beach and was arrested in Las Vegas for trespassing two days later. Rose said that Proctor was connected to the crimes by DNA evidence, fingerprints, eyewitness information and surveillance video.