A state appeals court panel has upheld a man’s conviction on forcible rape, burglary and other counts for an early morning attack in 2018 on a Santa Monica woman who was sleeping, but ordered a new sentencing hearing for him.
In a 30-page ruling released Wednesday, a three-justice panel rejected the defense’s contention that there were errors in Dylan James Jensen’s trial.
The appellate court panel noted that Jensen “did not dispute that he sexually assaulted” the victim, and that he instead pursued an insanity defense in which he claimed that he was delusional when he committed the attack and believed the victim was his wife.
Jurors convicted Jensen of forcible rape, forcible sodomy, forcible oral copulation, first-degree burglary and sexual battery in connection with the June 4, 2018, attack on a woman in her apartment in the 2900 block of Fourth Street. The jury found that he was sane at the time of the crimes.
Jensen broke into the apartment through a balcony door, took a knife from the kitchen, woke the sleeping woman and sexually assaulted her in an attack that lasted about 45 minutes, according to the appellate court panel’s ruling.
The victim called 911 shortly after the defendant left, and he was located and detained within minutes of the attack, the justices noted.
Jensen, now 46, was sentenced in April 2022 to 100 years to life in state prison.
The appellate court panel agreed with some of Jensen’s challenges to his sentence, ordering a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge to reduce his sentences for forcible sodomy and forcible oral copulation and to either impose concurrent sentences on four of the charges or to “clarify the legal and factual basis for its discretionary determination to impose consecutive sentences on those counts.”
The justices, however, rejected the defense’s claim that the trial court abused its discretion by denying a motion by the prosecution to dismiss allegations of use of a deadly weapon under a directive issued by then-newly elected District Attorney George Gascón.
In a statement to City News Service, the victim said, “Our justice system is an abysmal failure. The fact that someone who commits seven felonies against an innocent senior citizen while she’s sleeping in her bed should require the death sentence so there’s no chance of this happening to anyone else. But, no, we just put them in jail — no thanks to Gascón or (Governor Gavin) Newsom — so that they can escape one day or get out on probation or something else just as horrifying.”
“Who knows what could happen? I worry about this every single day,” she said, adding that she believes that it is “absolute insanity” that the efforts of the prosecutors, detective, police, witnesses, judge and jury — along with herself — during the court proceedings “could be dishonored and disregarded.”
“Just pray that you or a family member or friend aren’t the next rape victim because the way the justice system is set up is against the victim. Google it,” she added.