A registered sex offender pleaded guilty Friday and was sentenced to seven years in prison for raping a 19-year-old developmentally delayed woman in Garden Grove.
Matthew Jason Weaver, 50, pleaded guilty to rape, sexual penetration by a foreign object and sexual battery, all felonies. As part of the plea deal, felony counts of forcible oral copulation and attempted sodomy by force were dismissed.
Weaver has credit for 19 days behind bars.
The victim took a bus to Huntington Beach about 10:45 a.m., April 15, 2019, and while at the beach she broke her glasses, so she was struggling with her vision as she searched for her bus stop, prosecutors said in court papers. When she got lost, she flagged down drivers to get a ride home.
Weaver pulled up, noted she looked lost and offered her a ride home, prosecutors said.
Soon after she got in the car, he began to grope and sexually assault her, prosecutors said. He drove over to an underground parking garage in Garden Grove, where he raped her.
In July, prosecutors sought to increase bail for the defendant as he was accused of sexual abuse against his spouse in January in Kentucky. In May, his spouse filed a police report alleging domestic violence in Kentucky, prosecutors said.
Court records show Weaver was convicted in March 2014 of two misdemeanor counts of lewd conduct in a public place and one count of indecent exposure. He was sentenced to 60 days in jail and ordered to do eight hours of community service.
While he was on probation, he exposed himself in his car while making eye contact with two victims on July 11, 2016, and was subsequently convicted in October of that year of two felony counts of indecent exposure and two misdemeanor counts of lewd conduct in a public place and was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison.
The victims took a picture of the defendant’s car and gave a license plate number to police, according to an appellate court ruling affirming his convictions.
Two days later, Weaver “went to considerable effort to expose himself to another driver,” according to the ruling. “He tailgated her and swerved to pull up in the lane next to her, then — while yelling to get her attention — contorted his body upward in an attempt to expose his crotch.”