Wilson Signs Bills to Expand Rape Laws

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Pete Wilson on Friday signed legislation equalizing the penalties for all types of rape and repealing provisions that had made spousal rape a lesser crime.

Wilson also signed separate legislation making statutory rape a “gender-neutral” crime that can be charged against a woman as well as a man.

“The physical and emotional trauma caused by rape and domestic violence make it one of the most horrible of crimes,” Wilson said in a statement released by his office. “These measures will make the law cover more cases of rape and will increase the penalties against those who commit this crime of violence.”

The spousal rape bill, authored by Assemblywoman Hilda Solis (D-El Monte), attempts to make the rape of one’s spouse as serious a crime as the rape of anyone else.

The legislation makes spousal rape an automatic felony punishable by up to eight years in state prison. The old law allowed someone convicted of spousal rape to be found guilty of a misdemeanor and serve time in county jail.

The measure also expands the definition of spousal rape to include the rape of one’s spouse while the victim is drugged or unconscious and requires those convicted of the crime to register as sex offenders.

The bill had wide support in the Legislature despite opposition from two religious groups, including the Committee on Moral Concerns.

The committee said it opposed the bill because it removed the “assumed consent” for sexual relations between a husband and wife and would make it a felony for a husband to have sex with his wife without her consent.

The gender-neutral rape bill that Wilson signed, according to its author, Sen. Newton Russell (R-Glendale), stemmed from a case in Granada Hills and one in Hemet.

In the latter, a Hemet high school football coach, Randy Brown, and his wife, Kelly, received suspended prison sentences and probation after pleading guilty to charges that the coach had arranged for one of his players to have sex with his wife.

In the Granada Hills case, court documents stated that Faye D. Abramowitz, 40, invited boys ages 14 to 16 to her home, served them alcoholic drinks while showing them sex videos and then engaged in sex with them.

In July, Abramowitz pleaded no contest to three counts of lewd conduct with a child and five counts of oral copulation with a minor. She was sentenced to five years probation for having sex with teen-age boys. The prosecutor complained that women who commit sex crimes with minors are not punished as rigorously as men.