Teen Jailed in Rape a ‘Convenient Suspect,’ Lawyer Says

A Newbury Park teenager accused of raping a college student at knifepoint in the bathroom of his former high school has been wrongly accused, a defense attorney argued Tuesday.

Deputy Public Defender Robert Willey told a judge that his 18-year-old client, Chad Schmidt, was a “convenient suspect” for police eager to solve a string of sexual assaults near Newbury Park High School in the fall of 1996.

“This is an ID issue case,” Willey said in a brief opening statement at the teenager’s preliminary hearing. “Mr. Schmidt was arrested because he was the most convenient suspect.”

But prosecutor Lisa Frawley told the judge that evidence to be presented this week strongly suggests that it was Schmidt who attacked four women and a 14-year-old boy during an escalating crime spree.

Schmidt, who remains in custody, was arrested last year after a sheriff’s deputy identified him from a composite sketch while responding to a disturbance call. One of the victims later identified Schmidt in a photo lineup as her attacker by his “strikingly blue eyes,” according to the deputy district attorney.

Police found several similarities in the five attacks. In each instance, the assailant was described as a young man with pale skin and blue eyes.

The attacker wore a hooded sweatshirt and a dark-colored ski mask. And in four of the five assaults, he rode a light-colored BMX bicycle, according to police. The attacks all occurred within a quarter-mile of Schmidt’s home--two at the high school and the others in or near Borchard Park.

In addition, Frawley told Judge Charles Campbell Jr. that she plans to present evidence to show that before he moved to Newbury Park, Schmidt allegedly assaulted three women in Arizona.

Like in the Newbury Park attacks, the sexual assaults in Arizona occurred close to Schmidt’s residence. Those attacks were in a park across the street from where the defendant was living with his sister in July 1996, Frawley said.

Two of the Arizona victims, including a former high school classmate, have identified Schmidt as the person who grabbed them and exposed himself, Frawley said.

But Willey said that those alleged attacks have nothing to do with the Newbury Park case. He raised questions about how the police lineup was conducted, and said that the suspect description was too general to positively identify Schmidt as the culprit.

The teenager is facing 23 criminal charges including sexual assault, battery, prowling and rape. He is also charged with indecent exposure for allegedly revealing himself to three female Ventura County Jail inmates late last year.

Although he was 17 at the time of the attacks, Schmidt was ordered to be tried as an adult because of the seriousness of the crimes.

If Campbell finds sufficient evidence to support the charges, Schmidt would be bound over for a trial in Ventura County Superior Court. The hearing is scheduled to continue today.