Man Gets 16-Year Term in Prison for 2 Assaults

A 50-year-old Sepulveda man was sentenced to 16 years in prison Friday for sexually assaulting two women, then leading police on a high-speed motorcycle chase from Santa Clarita to Santa Barbara.

Lawrence David Gremminger had pleaded no contest last month to assault with intent to commit rape, forcible oral copulation and three counts of assault with a deadly weapon.

On March 18, Gremminger sexually assaulted a Los Angeles woman while she cleaned a room in a motel she owned, court documents said. He was arrested and released on $10,000 that day.

Three hours later, he attacked another woman in Santa Clarita.

Gremminger went to several homes in the Sand Canyon area, telling the women who answered the door that his motorcycle had broken down and asking if their husbands were home.

When one woman said her husband was not in, he pulled a gun and forced his way into her house, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Pamela Davis-Springer. Once inside, he dragged the woman into her bedroom and forced her to orally copulate him, Springer said. The woman escaped and ran outside.

A neighbor, William Woodson, and his son, Matthew, heard her screams and tried to intervene. Gremminger waved his gun at them and then drove off on his motorcycle, Springer said.

The Woodsons chased Gremminger to Granada Hills, where a police officer joined the pursuit.

After a chase on the Ventura Freeway at speeds of up to 100 m.p.h., Gremminger was arrested when his motorcycle ran out of gas near Santa Barbara.