Man Out of Prison 1 Week Charged in Kidnap, Rape

A North Hollywood man out of prison only a week was charged Thursday with abducting a woman from the parking lot of a Burbank drug store, and raping and robbing her, police said.

James R. Alford, 24, was arrested in Hollywood on Wednesday and was being held without bail at the Burbank jail on charges that include kidnaping, sexual assault, robbery and car theft, Burbank Police Sgt. Don Goldberg said.

Goldberg said that about 8 p.m. Tuesday, a 19-year-old woman was sitting in her car in the parking lot outside a drugstore in the 1000 block of San Fernando Road when a man with a gun got in beside her.

The gunman forced the woman to drive to the Arleta area, then through parts of Orange County, police said. He made her drive back to Los Angeles and, in a secluded spot in the Hollywood Hills, sexually assaulted her, police said.

The gunman dropped the woman off at an Arleta intersection about 3:30 a.m. Wednesday. He took her car and $180 from her purse, Goldberg said.

Los Angeles police spotted the woman’s car in the 1700 block of Northwestern Drive in Hollywood at 1 p.m. Wednesday and arrested its driver, identified as Alford, Goldberg said. A toy gun was found in the car, he said.

Goldberg said Alford, paroled a week earlier from a state prison where he had served time for burglary and forgery, admitted to investigators that he had abducted and assaulted the victim.