Sentencing delayed for convicted rapist

A man who faced sentencing Friday after being caught in a Costa Mesa motel room attacking his family in 2005 got a reprieve after he told his judge he wanted to replace his lawyer first.

Robert Butterfield, 40, faces up to 139 years to life in prison after being convicted in July of raping, beating and threatening for several years to kill his female relatives. Friday was supposed to be those relatives’ time for justice, when Butterfield would be sentenced for sexually assaulting one of his female relatives from 1996 to 2005, when she was between 7 and 16 years old.

Butterfield also faces time for sexually assaulting that girl’s younger sister, when she was between 11 and 12 years old.

But while in jail, between July and late August, Judge James Stotler said Butterfield had written him two letters. Without disclosing the letters’ contents, he explained to lawyers and to the victims awaiting sentencing in the audience, that Butterfield had rights, and was required to give him time to “gather his thoughts.”

Butterfield’s attorney, James Appel, did not discuss what the letters said. Butterfield is seeking a change of attorney, a motion, if granted, that could further delay his sentencing because his new attorney would need time to review the case and trial transcripts, Stotler said in court.

Butterfield was convicted of 20 felonies, including forcible lewd acts on a child younger than 14, sodomy by force, corporal injury to a child, child abuse and criminal threats.

He was arrested by what can only be described as being in the right place at the right time, prosecutors said.

On July 24, 2005, a Costa Mesa police officer driving past the Ana Mesa Motel off Harbor Boulevard at 10 p.m. saw what appeared to be a struggle through a second-story motel room window. The officer turned around and approached the room to investigate. Inside, with other officers backing him up, police found Butterfield standing over his relatives, many of them bruised and beaten, all of them frightened, prosecutors said.

The relatives said they did not report him to police because he had threatened to kill them. Butterfield’s motion for a new attorney is scheduled for Oct. 17.

JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at [email protected].