Richmond man takes 36 years for kidnapping, raping stranger at gunpoint

RICHMOND — A city resident was sentenced to 36 years in state prison Friday, after pleading guilty to pulling a weapon on a randomly-selected victim and raping her in a July 2019 attack, prosecutors said.

Delon Ward, 32, will also have to register as a sex offender for life as a result of his plea deal. Ward pleaded guilty to kidnapping and forcibly raping the victim, a woman in her 40s known in court records as Jane Doe. Both charges included gun enhancements for use of a firearm.

Police said at the time that a pellet gun was found on Ward when he was arrested for the attack but that his victim believed it was a real firearm.

Ward attacked the victim in Richmond, as she was on a daily walk one July 2019 morning. She noticed Ward following her but didn’t think anything of it, she later told authorities. When she approached her home he grabbed her, forced her against a parked car, and raped her. He then fled, and she promptly reported the assault to police, authorities said at the time.

“Jane Doe bravely came forward to report the crime, and through the efforts of the Richmond Police Department, the defendant was identified and taken into custody quickly,” deputy district attorney Scott Prosser, who prosecuted the case, said in a written statement as part of a Contra Costa District Attorney news release. .

Under state law, a person can be convicted of kidnapping for moving a victim a “substantial” distance — even if it’s just a few feet. In this case, prosecutors contended that moving Doe off the sidewalk helped Ward rape her without being seen.

Ward was arrested after police reviewed surveillance footage of the area. Prosser said in a written statement to this newspaper that the police investigators — Richmond Ofc. Orlando Guzman and Detectives AJ Fonseca and Andrew Barbara — “left no stone unturned.”