Jury Selection Underway For Corona Man Charged With Rape, Kidnapping

CORONA, CA — Jury selection began Thursday in the trial of a 32-year-old man accused of sexually assaulting two women in Riverside in the last decade.

Marlon Acosta of Corona is charged with forced sexual penetration, forcible sodomy, rape of an intoxicated victim, assault with intent to commit rape and kidnapping to commit rape for alleged assaults in 2010 and 2014.

Acosta's case was assigned Wednesday to the courtroom of Judge Jason Armand at the Riverside Hall of Justice, where pretrial motions were heard. Prospective jurors were summoned to the courthouse Thursday for screening as to their availability and qualifications.

Trial testimony could begin next week.

Acosta is being held without bail at the Robert Presley Jail in Riverside.

According to Riverside police and court documents, the defendant allegedly perpetrated the first attack on June 16, 2010, involving a woman identified only by the initials "J.L."

Acosta allegedly abducted the woman and took her to an unspecified location, where he sexually assaulted her several times.

Detectives did not disclose whether he might have stalked the victim, or how she was targeted. She did not know her attacker.

On July 17, 2014, the defendant allegedly raped a woman identified in court documents only as "L.C.," who was possibly unconscious at the time.

No other details regarding the alleged attacks were divulged.

The Riverside Police Department's Sexual Assault-Child Abuse Unit had few clues to go on until "advances in forensic technology" enabled them to gather sufficient evidence to identify the alleged assailant, Acosta, according to agency spokesman Officer Javier Cabrera.

Acosta has no documented prior felony convictions in Riverside County.