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Sixth Person Arrested In Beach Robbery, Rapes Case

POSTED: 5:33 pm PDT October 25, 2006
UPDATED: 5:47 pm PDT October 25, 2006

A sixth suspect was arrested Wednesday in connection with the armed robbery of four teenage college students and the rape of two of them in a Mission Beach apartment this month.

Robert Anthony Reynolds, 21, surrendered to detectives in the 3800 block of Birch Street in the Shelltown district of San Diego about 7:45 a.m., according to police.

He was booked on suspicion of receiving stolen property and acting as an accessory after the fact, said SDPD public information officer Monica Munoz, who added that more arrests might be forthcoming.

Three other men and two boys face a slate of charges in connection with the Oct. 15 home invasion, which spread fear through coastal neighborhoods and prompted a series of community safety meetings.

Masked intruders entered the San Fernando Place residence about 2:30 a.m. and stole cash, credit cards and valuables at gunpoint from two 19-year-old men, an 18-year-old woman and a 17-year-old girl, then raped the female victims.

One of the students lived at the apartment and the others were visiting.

Two of the adult suspects, Donald Duante Smith, 19, and Willie Louis Watkins, 30, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to multiple sexual assault, robbery and kidnapping charges.

The names of the two 17-year-old arrestees have been withheld because they are minors. Deputy District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis has said she will seek to prosecute at least one of them as an adult.

Smith and Watkins were each ordered held in lieu of $1 million bail. A status conference was scheduled for Oct. 31 and a preliminary hearing for Nov. 6.

A third man accused in the attack, 18-year-old Antonio Washington, surrendered to authorities in Glendale, Ariz., and will be arraigned in San Diego after he is extradited.

Smith and Washington are charged with two counts of forcible rape while acting in concert, four counts of forcible rape, two counts of oral copulation by acting in concert, four counts of forcible oral copulation, one count of sodomy while acting in concert, four counts of robbery and two counts of kidnapping for robbery.

Watkins is charged with two counts each of forcible rape while acting in concert and oral copulation by acting in concert, one count of sodomy while acting in concert, four counts of robbery and two counts of kidnapping for robbery.

Smith and Watkins, along with six to eight others, were in Mission Beach committing street holdups the night of the home-invasion robberies and sex assaults, prosecutors allege.

The defendants and others separated from the larger group to steal property from the apartment near Belmont Park, Deputy District Attorney Patrick Espinoza alleged.

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