SANTA CLARITA / ANTELOPE VALLEY : Reputed Gang Member Sentenced for Assault

VAN NUYS —  A 19-year-old reputed gang member wept as he was sentenced Tuesday to six years in prison for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl.

Christopher O’Dell was convicted on one felony count of performing a lewd act upon a child in the July 9, 1993, incident. The girl was attacked in the bathroom of a friend’s house in Saugus, unaware that the residence had become a popular gang hangout.

Before the sentencing, O’Dell’s mother asked for leniency for her son, as did a friend who said the teen-ager often takes care of his son.

“Basically, both of them talked about how he’s severed his gang affiliations,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Noyes.

But a letter presented to Superior Court Judge Charles Peven from the victim’s mother said that the girl, now 13, is “depressed, no longer seems to care about the things she is interested in and seems to be in fear,” Noyes said.

The mother did not request a specific sentence in her letter.

The girl testified during the trial that she had decided to take a shower after a shaving cream fight at the house and was sexually assaulted by O’Dell as she was drying off.

Police officials said the house had turned into a gang hangout earlier during the summer when a father left his 20-year-old daughter in charge of the house. The woman was dating a gang member, and others in his group soon frequented the house, police said.

O’Dell will be eligible for parole in three years.

Judge Peven could have sentenced him to a maximum of eight years in prison, or a minimum sentence of probation after a year or less in County Jail, Noyes said.