Security Guard Pleads To LA Serial Rapes

LOS ANGELES, CA — A former security guard suspected in a series of attacks on sex-trade workers in the South Los Angeles area pleaded no contest Monday to sexually assaulting two women and attacking two others.

Ferdinand Ervin Flowers, 35, of Long Beach, is facing 30 years to life in state prison for his plea to two counts each of forcible oral copulation and assault with intent to commit forcible oral copulation involving attacks between May 2014 and September 2017, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office.

He is also expected to be ordered to register for the rest of his life as a sex offender.

Flowers was suspected of 13 gunpoint attacks on as many as 14 sex trade workers in the South Los Angeles area over the past four years, authorities said earlier this year.

Detectives conducting surveillance of the area arrested Flowers about 1:30 a.m. Jan. 12, after a 19-year-old woman got out of his car in an area where he is suspected of releasing other alleged victims, according to Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Justin Eisenberg.

The vehicle and his home were searched and a handgun was recovered, police said.

Flowers is due back in a Compton courtroom for sentencing on Oct. 29.

City News Service; Photo: Shutterstock