An alleged East Bay serial rapist signed his life away, then asked his lawyer when he could go home. The plea deal unraveled from there

OAKLAND — More than two years after an accused East Bay serial rapist essentially agreed to a life sentence through a plea deal, a superior court judge has made a rare decision to allow him to backtrack, erasing the agreement and restarting the case from square one.

Damon Jones, 49, was charged with sexually assaulting three women in random, separate attacks from 2017 to 2018. In 2022, he agreed to a 92-year prison term and went through the motions with a judge, claiming he understood the deal’s consequences and was ready to move forward, according to court records.

Then Jones made a chilling call to his then-attorney, asking her when he could go home now that the case was all over with. The lawyer immediately notified the court system, kicking off a lengthy period of litigation and evaluation by doctors, which ultimately led to Judge Thomas Reardon agreeing to undo the deal.

In an Oct. 24 court hearing, Reardon point to a prior judge’s finding that Jones was incompetent to stand trial after signing the plea agreement, and two doctors’ reports to that effect. He said the timing of that finding raises strong doubts about Jones’ competency at the time he agreed to the deal.

“I guess I’m giving an indicated ruling that if someone made a motion to withdraw a plea before me now, I would grant it,” Reardon said at the hearing. The following month, he did grant such a motion by Jones’ lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Stephanie Regular.

In her motion, Regular said that Jones’ IQ was measured at 45, and he demonstrates “profound impairment” with basic skills, like memory or speaking.

“Mr. Jones did not learn colors or how to count until age 12. He struggled to form complete sentences until well into high school,” Regular wrote in the motion.

Now that the plea deal is no longer in place, Jones’ case is proceeding, for now. Doctors have cleared him to return to jail from a state mental hospital, and his next hearing date has been set for Jan. 10, court records show. He cannot be bailed out.

Prosecutors allege that Jones kidnapped and sexually assaulted three different women in Oakland, San Leandro and Hayward. He was linked by DNA to two of the attacks, and claimed one of them was a consensual encounter and the woman began screaming at him out of the blue, according to court records.

The women claimed Jones attacked them in public, in one case by allegedly forcing “a hard object” into a woman’s back, which she believed was a gun, before taking her to an abandoned construction area to sexually assault her. In another case, he allegedly told a woman he had a gun and a knife and forcibly sodomized her for 15 minutes, while she begged him to stop, according to court records.

On top of the DNA match, victims identified Jones by his “very unique” skin condition. He had a GPS ankle monitor as part of a condition of parole from a prior conviction, which allowed police to link his movements to the locations of the alleged attacks, prosecutors said in court filings.

The now-defunct plea deal had Jones accept several felony convictions in exchange for a 92-year prison term.