Accused Killer’s Plea Bid Rejected

Simi Valley serial rapist Vincent Sanchez offered to plead no contest to murder, rape and related charges Thursday--a move prosecutors flatly rejected.

“Unfortunately, it is not a surprise,” said Chief Deputy Public Defender Neil Quinn. “They seem to have their minds made up.”

The Ventura County district attorney is seeking the death penalty for Sanchez, a 31-year-old handyman accused of gunning down a Moorpark College student during a kidnap and rape attempt last summer.

Sanchez is charged with first-degree murder, attempted rape, attempted kidnapping and special circumstance allegations that make it a death penalty case. He is also charged with counts regarding alleged assaults on two other women.

At a hearing Thursday, Sanchez offered to plead no contest to all of the charges and accept a sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole. He also offered to waive his rights to an appeal.

But Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Lela Henke-Dobroth told Superior Court Judge Ken Riley that her office was not interested.

“We will not be accepting the defendant’s plea, your honor. It’s as simple as that,” Henke-Dobroth said.

Sanchez’s plea offer was not a surprise. He has admitted killing 20-year-old Megan Barroso, but denies that he shot her during a kidnap and rape attempt as prosecutors allege.

Several months ago, Sanchez attempted to plead guilty to murder without specifying a degree of the crime. Prosecutors also rejected that proposed plea.

Henke-Dobroth said at the time that the district attorney was not interested in making a deal and instead wanted to go to trial.

The prosecutor argued at a recent preliminary hearing that Sanchez was a predator who assaulted a dozen women, raping six at knifepoint, during a string of increasingly violent attacks between 1996 and 2001.

Prosecutors contend those attacks culminated with the July 5, 2001, killing of Barroso. She died after being shot with an AK-47 assault rifle while driving home from a friend’s house.

Prosecutors allege Sanchez dragged the mortally wounded Barroso from her bullet-ridden car after it rolled to a stop beneath a freeway overpass near Moorpark. They say he then tried to rape her.

Barroso’s partly clothed body was found a month later in a ravine near Simi Valley.

Sanchez denies that he attempted to sexually assault Barroso, and his attorneys argue that there is no evidence to prove the alleged rape attempt.

But Quinn said Thursday that Sanchez, who is already facing life in prison after pleading guilty last fall to numerous sexual assaults, is remorseful and ready to accept responsibility for the shooting.

“He is willing to close the case by dying in prison,” Quinn said.

Sanchez did not enter a plea Thursday. His arraignment was postponed until this morning, when he is expected to again attempt to plead guilty to murder without specifying the degree.

Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Dee Corona said Thursday that prosecutors have researched the issue and concluded that Sanchez cannot enter such a plea.

Quinn disagrees. “We feel we have the law on our side,” he said.