Huntington Beach : Parolee Gets Maximum Sentence in Rape Case

A prison parolee found guilty of raping a Huntington Beach woman who committed suicide six months after the attack was sentenced to 13 years in prison Tuesday.

Ty Glen Clayton, 34, who had served three years in prison on a 1977 conviction of raping two other women, was given the maximum possible sentence by Superior Court Judge Donald A. McCartin--8 years for the rape conviction and 5 years added for being a prior felon and parole violator.

Clayton, who denied committing the crime, was convicted last month of the rape of 21-year-old Kimberly Prentice on June 7, 1980. Prentice died of an apparent drug overdose in Florida six months later.

It was Clayton’s third trial in the rape case. Prentice testified at the first trial, in 1980, which ended in a deadlocked jury. At the second trial, five months after Prentice’s death, Clayton was convicted after jurors were given sworn statements by her about the incident.

However, the 4th District Court of Appeal overturned the conviction because jurors had been improperly told by a psychologist that Prentice had committed suicide, and that the suicide was related to the rape. Also, the appellate court held that jurors should not have been told about the 1977 rape conviction.

In the third trial, jurors were read Prentice’s testimony from the first trial, and were told she was dead, but not how she died.

Clayton, who represented himself, argued that he had answered an ad that Prentice had run seeking a roommate, and that the two of them had engaged in consensual sex.