It took nearly a decade for justice to be served. But, a man has just been sentenced to more than three decades in state prison for a violent sexual assault in Ventura County.
In May of 2013, a woman was jogging on the outskirts of Santa Paula when a man grabbed her, and dragged her into an orchard. He pulled out a knife, and sexually assaulted her. The man then told her if she reported the incident, he would attack her family.
The victim did report the assault, and DNA evidence was collected. In May of 2018, Leroy Chad Tracy was arrested for an unrelated crime. Ventura County Sheriff’s detectives say his DNA matched that from the sexual assault five years earlier.
Tracy was arrested in 2019. In March, he pled guilty to a pair of sexual assault charges. It led to him receiving a 36-year-state prison sentence.