A San Francisco man convicted last year of sexually assaulting a transgender woman in 2007 will be charged today in connection with two other attacks on transgender victims, including a woman who was raped and murdered.
Donzell Francis, 41, is scheduled to be arraigned on murder and other charges in San Francisco Superior Court this afternoon.
He was served with an arrest warrant in prison last week, district attorney’s office spokesman Brian Buckelew said.
A jury convicted Francis in December of forcible oral copulation, robbery, assault causing great bodily injury and false imprisonment for a Sept. 10, 2007, attack on a transgender prostitute, identified by prosecutors as Lena, whom he picked up in his truck in the Tenderloin District.
He was sentenced in January to 17 years and eight months in prison in that case.
Prosecutors say Francis’ DNA has been linked to four sexual assaults of transgender women, including the September 2007 attack.
Francis is now accused of assaulting and strangling another of those four women, 27-year-old transgender prostitute Ruby Rodriguez, also known as Ruby Ordenana.
Her body was found on the sidewalk at Indiana and Cesar Chavez streets near Potrero Hill on March 16, 2007.
The new charges include murder, forcible oral copulation and sodomy by force, Buckelew said.
Francis is also being charged today for an alleged attack on a third transgender woman, Jessie G., on Feb. 5, 2008.
The charges in that case include kidnapping to commit sodomy, sodomy by force, second-degree robbery, assault with force likely to cause great bodily injury, and false imprisonment.
The fourth case has not yet been charged.
