Man convicted in break-ins and trail assaults in Ventura, Thousand Oaks

The man accused in a string of home break-ins and hiking trail attacks in Ventura County has been found guilty of sexual assault and other crimes, charges that could land him in prison for life.

After three days of deliberating, jurors reached verdicts Wednesday in the trial of Edgar Rodriguez Ruelas, and read them in court on Thursday morning. Rodriguez Ruelas, 41, was convicted on all five felony counts he was charged with, stemming from attacks on five different women in 2016, 2017 and 2020.

The most serious — sexual penetration by force during the commission of a burglary, with intent to commit rape or sexual assault — carries a potential sentence of 25 years to life in prison. He was also convicted of assault on a person under the age of 18 with intent to commit rape or sexual assault, and three other counts of assault with intent to commit rape or sexual assault, one of which was in the commission of a burglary.

Rodriguez Ruelas’ sentence won’t be determined until next week. The jury will reconvene on Monday for a hearing on “aggravating factors” that could affect the sentence, including accusations that Rodriguez Ruelas’ crimes involved violence or the threat of great bodily harm, planning and sophistication, and particularly vulnerable victims.

Police and prosecutors believe Rodriguez Ruelas was responsible for more than the five assaults he was charged with. There was a string of break-ins and peeping incidents in 2016 in the Ventura neighborhood where Rodriguez Ruelas lived at the time, near the Ventura County Government Center. The crimes were similar to the ones Rodriguez Ruelas was convicted of, and they stopped when he moved out of the area.

In March 2020, Rodriguez Ruelas was arrested in San Diego, the day after a 16-year-old girl reported that a man attacked her on a hiking trail in Oak Park. Police then connected him to break-ins and other hiking trail attacks in Thousand Oaks in 2017 and Ventura in 2016.

“This was three years of terror, and one man responsible for it all,” Deputy District Attorney Brent Nibecker, the prosecutor in the case, told the jury last week in his closing argument. “He prowled in the darkness, clothed in black. … He was nice to his family and close to his friends, but he terrorized women who were complete strangers to him, simply because they were vulnerable.”

Rodriguez Ruelas’ defense centered on a claim that he is obsessed with women’s underwear. His attorney, public defender Sandra Bisignani, told the jury his motive in breaking into women’s homes and grabbing them on trails was not to sexually assault them, but to touch their underwear. The case, she said, was not a “whodunit,” but a “why-done-it.”

Nibecker told the jury that explanation didn’t make sense, because Rodriguez Ruelas broke into homes at night where women were sleeping and approached them in their beds, rather than rifling through their dresser drawers. And police never found a stash of stolen underwear or other evidence that that was his motive.

“Everything we’ve heard from this defendant has been a lie,” Nibecker said. “He will do whatever it takes to get out of trouble.”

Tony Biasotti is an investigative and watchdog reporter for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at tbiasotti@vcstar.com. This story was made possible by a grant from the Ventura County Community Foundation's Fund to Support Local Journalism.

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Man convicted in Ventura, T.O. break-ins, trail assaults