A state appellate court panel Thursday rejected an appeal filed on behalf of a former maintenance supervisor who was convicted of sexually assaulting or battering three female underlings at an Arcadia shopping mall.
The three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal turned down the defense’s contention that there was insufficient evidence of unlawful restraint to support Diego Briones Cervantes’ conviction for sexual battery involving one of the women.
The appellate court justices found that there was “substantial evidence” that Cervantes restrained the employee after summoning her to clean a vacant cafe in September 2015.
The attacks against the three women he supervised occurred during work hours at the mall on or between Sept. 1, 2015, and Feb. 2, 2017, Deputy District Attorney Fernanda Barreto said after the verdict. The mall contracted with a janitorial company for which Cervantes and the victims worked, according to the prosecutor.
Cervantes retaliated against the women for resisting his attacks by cutting their work hours, according to trial testimony.
Along with the sexual battery charge, jurors found the San Gabriel man guilty of one count each of forcible rape, attempted rape and sexual penetration by a foreign object and two counts each of forcible oral copulation and false imprisonment by violence.
The panel acquitted him of a sexual battery charge involving a fourth woman he supervised who provided maintenance services at the Westfield Santa Anita mall.
He is serving a 64-year-to-life state prison sentence.
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