OAKLAND — Prosecutors here have settled a rape case here by allowing the defendant to plead to a lesser crime of assault for a mix of jail, probation, and monitoring, court records show.
Eric Conley, 23, pleaded no contest to assault likely to produce great bodily injury and in exchange, prosecutors dropped rape, forcible oral copulation, forcible sodomy and unlawful sexual intercourse charges against him. The case involved allegations that Conley sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl after they met on social media.
In return for his plea, Conley will be sentenced to a mix of things: He must remain in jail until January, at which time he’ll technically be sentenced to a year of county jail, but allowed to serve it on house arrest with an ankle monitor, according to court records. He’ll also receive a two-year probation term and be discharged to San Joaquin County.
Conley was arrested last year. At the time, the girl told police she knew Conley from social media and contacted him for a phone charger because her cellphone was running out of battery. When he arrived in a vehicle he convinced her to get in the car with him and they drove off to another part of Oakland, where he sexually assaulted her, she told authorities.
The girl texted her mom for help at the precise moment that her mother was filing a missing person’s report with Oakland police, authorities said.