Kern County “Career Criminal” Receives Multiple Consecutive Life Sentences for Kidnapping, Rape
KERN COUNTY, CA — June 24th 2026 — “Today, Vincent Deleon was sentenced to the maximum punishment allowed under the law for the kidnapping and rape of a woman he abducted from the In-Shape parking lot on Coffee Road in Bakersfield. Deleon received multiple consecutive life sentences totaling 139 years to life, plus 90 years.
In April of 2026, a Kern County Jury convicted Deleon of charges include rape, oral copulation by force, sodomy, rape with a foreign object, carjacking, kidnapping, robbery, conspiracy, dissuading a witness, assault with a semi-automatic firearm, and being a felon with a firearm.
The case was tried by DA Cynthia Zimmer and Deputy DA Cyrus Shahbazian.
The conviction stems from an incident that occurred on December 15, 2023, when the victim was leaving the In-Shape gym on Coffee Road. As she got into her car in the parking lot, Deleon, a complete stranger, wearing a mask, gloves, and armed with a firearm, opened the driver’s door, pointed his firearm at her head and demanded that she move to the front passenger seat. Deleon then kidnapped the victim and drove her car to two banks where he demanded the victim to withdraw money using her debit card from the drive-through ATM. After obtaining $500, Deleon drove the victim, while repeatedly threatening to kill her, to various locations in rural Kern County. Defendant Deleon backed her car into a remote orange orchard off Maricopa Highway where he forcibly raped, sodomized, and orally copulated her against her will. Afterward, he drove the victim to the Vallarta Supermarket on Panama Lane and dropped her off, after threating to kill her and her family if she reported the crime. Deleon then used the victim’s debit card to buy himself clothing. Within two hours, Bakersfield Police located the defendant driving the victim’s car. He led police on a high-speed chase before crashing the vehicle and fleeing on foot. He was apprehended in an alley in East Bakersfield.
Deleon, a career criminal, will spend the rest of his life behind bars.”
