A man convicted of raping and murdering a 70-year-old Seal Beach woman has been sentenced to death.
An Orange County Superior Court judge on Tuesday upheld a jury's death penalty recommendation for 63-year-old Benjamin Watta.
He was convicted in June of attacking Simone Sharpe as she fed her neighbor's cats 28 years ago.
Prosecutors argued that DNA evidence matched Watta to the crime. They decided to seek the death penalty because DNA linked Watta to an unsolved rape in Florida.
Watta was a registered sex offender and has prior convictions for attempted rape, burglary, use of a firearm and attempted murder of a police officer.
Defense attorneys have said Watta was abandoned when he was a baby and sexually abused as a child.
"25% of all sex offenders re-offend within 15 years"
........Sarah Tofte
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