19-Year-Old who Kidnapped Woman from Westfield Topanga Gets 84 Years

A 19-year-old Lancaster man who kidnapped a woman as she was returning to her car outside the Westfield Topanga shopping mall and raped her was sentenced today to 84 years to life in prison.

Kioki Ray Snowden was convicted last month of one count each of kidnapping, kidnapping for robbery, robbery, rape, sexual penetration by a foreign object, forcible oral copulation and identity theft, according to Ricardo Santiago of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

Jurors also found true numerous sentence-enhancing allegations, including use of a knife during the kidnapping, but acquitted Snowden of three other rape charges and one count of sodomy.

According to police and prosecutors, the 19-year-old woman was confronted at knifepoint on July 4, 2013, when she returned to her car as she left her job in the mall, then was taken to a bank parking lot in San Marino where she was sexually assaulted over a three-hour period and robbed.

Snowden was arrested a week later.

--City News Service