SAN JOSE — A man who preyed on young girls online by posing as a teen faces life in prison after a Santa Clara County jury convicted him of raping a San Jose girl in 2016 and later trying to snatch a 13-year-old girl off a San Francisco street, before he was famously thwarted by good Samaritans who rescued her from his grasp.
Lee Mason Eigl, 34, was found guilty Friday of five felony counts encompassing kidnapping, rape and forced oral copulation of a minor, robbery, and intimidating a witness in the San Jose case. For the San Francisco attack he was convicted of four felony counts covering kidnapping, assault of a minor, robbery, and making criminal threats.
Eigl was also convicted of possessing images and material depicting sexual abuse of children; he pleaded no contest to a felony charge before trial proceedings began in February. Authorities said that after his 2017 arrest — which led to him being linked to the earlier San Jose assault — he made a jail call asking a family member to destroy hard drives and electronics he kept at the San Francisco home he shared with his parents.
Each of the kidnapping convictions carries a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole, which would effectively supersede any numerical prison terms calculated from the remaining charges. Eigl has been held without bail in the Elmwood men’s jail since July 2018.
O’Bryan Kenney worked on the initial case as a San Francisco prosecutor, then took it over after it was transferred to Santa Clara County, where he joined the district attorney’s office in 2019. He said at trial, Eigl was revealed to be a serial predator who solicited young girls on the internet by posing as a peer and engaging in sexual communications, with several escalating into physical encounters.
“This is the culmination of a long investigation and prosecution which revealed the truly harrowing nature of this man’s predatory behavior,” Kenney said of the verdict. “We are extremely grateful to the survivors of this case for their steadfastness in seeking justice.”
Megan Burns, Eigl’s trial attorney, told this news organization that she intends to challenge the conviction.
“We are disappointed with the jury’s verdict but we remain committed to ensure that Mr. Eigl’s rights are fully protected,” Burns said in a statement. “We are actively exploring all legal avenues to appeal the outcome.”
The San Jose victim was 16 when she began communicating with Eigl, who presented himself as a 16-year-old on social-media apps including Snapchat, according to a San Jose police investigation. On Nov. 9, 2016, Eigl, who was actually 26, traveled from San Francisco to meet up with the girl and drove her to a secluded area in San Jose’s east foothills.
While in his car, Eigl reportedly made a pass at the girl, who turned away; he responded by carrying her over his shoulder to a nearby drainage ditch where he raped her and forced her to perform oral sex. During the assault, he took at least one photo of the victim, and took her phone. Eigl later drove her home, and threatened physical harm if she told anyone about what happened.
The girl reported the rape in January 2017, after confiding in a school counselor, who alerted San Jose police. But because Eigl had been using an online persona in his interactions with her, there was no ready way to definitively identify and locate him.
Eigl would not stay under the radar for long: On March 22, 2017, he approached an unsuspecting 13-year-old girl walking in the Taraval neighborhood in San Francisco, grabbed her and forced her into his car. Two men living in a nearby home heard her screams and rushed over, pulling the girl out of the car before he could drive away.
The good Samaritans and victim provided a car description and partial license plate number to police, and Eigl was arrested a few hours later. Eigl’s booking photo was shared with area law enforcement agencies, and eventually it was presented to the San Jose victim, who identified him as her attacker.
A search of Eigl’s phone later corroborated the online communications he had with the San Jose girl. She participated in police-monitored messaging with Eigl, who reportedly grew suspicious and threatened to widely share a photo from her sexual assault if she did not agree to see him again.
“It was always sweet until it’s sinister,” Kenney said, referring to Eigl’s pattern of behavior.
That pattern was reinforced by the prosecution when Kenney presented evidence that in February 2015, Eigl traveled to Washington state to meet a 15-year-old girl he interacted with online in similar fashion to the San Jose victim, and had sex with her at a motel.
Kenney made a point to laud the bystanders who rushed to the girl’s aid in the San Francisco kidnapping, crediting them for helping unravel Eigl’s trail of crimes.
“The heroic actions of these good Samaritans saved one young girl from a terrible fate, and ensured the defendant would be held accountable for the suffering of another,” Kenney said.
Eigl is scheduled for sentencing on May 30 in a San Jose courtroom.