Maximum term for attack on transgender woman

Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/25/BAIG1BNC8H.DTL

(01-25) 17:08 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- A San Francisco judge handed down the maximum sentence of 17 years and eight months in state prison Monday against a man convicted of sexually assaulting a transgender prostitute and suspected of committing several similar attacks.

Police say Donzell Francis, 41, is a suspect in as many as four sexual assaults in addition to the one for which he was sentenced Monday, the September 2007 attack on a transgender woman identified only as Lena H. She was picked up in the Tenderloin, choked and sexually assaulted before she managed to escape, naked.