Man Gets Prison in Assault at Navy Base

An Oxnard man has been sentenced in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles to nearly eight years in prison for brutally assaulting his ex-wife at the Port Hueneme naval base where she was a civilian employee.

The charges against Frederick Garcia Anaya III, 35, were filed as federal crimes because they were committed on U.S. government property.

Anaya, who had three prior convictions for domestic violence, pleaded guilty last October to a four-count federal indictment in connection with the attacks at the base.

At a sentencing hearing Friday before U.S. District Judge Consuelo B. Marshall, Martha Anaya testified that her ex-husband accosted her at the base in November 1994, threw her down, pounded her head against the floor and tried to tie her hands with an electrical cord.

He also threatened to shoot her, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Lawrence H. Cho.

The woman escaped and called authorities, but by the time they arrived her ex-husband had fled.

In January 1995, however, he returned to the base, lying in wait when she got out of her van. This time, the prosecutor said, he punched her in the face and threw her into the van where he taped her mouth and hands with duct tape. He was about to drive off with her when a co-worker arrived and rescued her.

Cho said Anaya fled the state after the second attack and wound up in Kansas City, where he served short jail terms for attacks on two other women. He also had an earlier domestic violence conviction in California.

When he returned to California, Anaya was arrested by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and was charged with two counts of assault with intent to commit a felony, one count of unlawful confinement and one count of attempted kidnapping.

Marshall ordered him confined to federal prison for 92 months, followed by five years of supervised release.