All charges have been dropped against a man accused of holding a woman captive for six months and torturing her at his Chino Hills home in 2022.
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The charges were dropped against Peter Anthony McGuire last month, and Judge Ingrid A. Uhler placed McGuire in a mental health conservatorship, according to San Bernardino County Superior Court records. The conservatorship, which must be renewed annually, requires someone to be in charge of the medical treatment of an adult with a serious mental illness.
“I think it was very clearly the right result,” Charles Kenyon, McGuire’s attorney, said. “I know the world is shocked because the criminal case got dismissed, and I’m sure the community is scared, but I think it was the right legal decision, no question about it.”
Kenyon declined to elaborate, saying he could not discuss McGuire’s personal health history, and said some of the testimony before the judge was sealed.
A woman with visible injuries escaped McGuire’s home in the 16200 block of Cordovan Court in June 2022 and had bystanders call law enforcement officials to Alterra Park. She told deputies that McGuire tortured, physically assaulted and raped her while she was being held against her will in his home for months, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said.
The 22-year-old woman had moved in with McGuire but then was not allowed to leave the home, they said.
Sheriff’s officials served a search warrant at the home and later arrested McGuire, 59 at the time, in Placentia following a standoff. It wasn’t clear if McGuire was living in Orange County.
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At an arraignment, McGuire pleaded not guilty and denied all charges against him, including torture, kidnapping to commit a robbery or rape, mayhem, assault with a deadly weapon likely to cause great bodily injury, false imprisonment and three counts of sexual assault by force, according to court records.
He had also faced sentencing enhancements related to causing great bodily injury to a person and great bodily injury during sex crimes.
McGuire was released to an LPS conservatorship. LPS stands for the names of the California legislators who wrote the LPS Act in the 1970s: Lanterman, Petris, and Short.
Those who are mentally ill and placed under the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act keep many civil rights, though the court can limit voting, driving, or owning a gun, according to Disability Rights California.
Among other things, the LPS Act was meant to “end the inappropriate, indefinite, and involuntary commitment of persons with mental health disorders.”
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