EL RIO MAN TESTIFIES TO INNOCENCE IN RAPE; DEFENDANT DENIES COMMITTING 14 FELONIES IN ATTACK ON 4 WOMEN IN NOVEMBER OF 1996.

Byline: Jesse Hiestand Daily News Staff Writer

An El Rio man charged in a series of sexual assaults near Moorpark last winter took the stand Wednesday and denied each of the allegations against him with a terse, flat ``no.''

Silverio Ambriz, 31, said he was sleeping in a trailer behind his wife's home when the four women were attacked as they drove along a stretch of Highway 118 in the early morning hours the day after Thanksgiving Day 1996.

Deputy Public Defender Gary Windom asked Ambriz if he had committed any of the 14 felonies with which he is charged, including rape, kidnapping, sexual battery, robbery and soliciting the murder of a rape victim.

``They are not true,'' Ambriz said through a Spanish-language translator.

On cross-examination, Deputy District Attorney Jacqueline Wise asked Ambriz why all four victims identified him as the driver of a white pickup truck that rammed their cars on Highway 118. One woman was dragged into the bushes and raped when she stopped her car to check for damage. Another managed to escape after being hit on the head. Two other women drove away without injury, including one who wrote down the license number of the pickup.

They must be liars, the defendant said, suggesting that the victims identified him simply because he was the only suspect arrested and tried in the case.

``I was the only one that was there - the only one that has been charged,'' he said.

Ambriz testified that he spent that Thanksgiving with his family in El Rio. He said he spent several hours at his mother's house in Oxnard, playing guitar and singing songs before returning home and going to sleep.

Ambriz also said he had been working at Oxnard Harvest as a foreman, overseeing the picking of lettuce and onions. He said the white Ford pickup parked outside his home belonged to his employer and that he was the only person allowed to drive it.

He also denied having his wife, Martina Sanchez, find out the name of the rape victim so he could hire a hit man to kill her.

But police recorded two conversations between Ambriz and another inmate at the Ventura County Jail as they allegedly discussed the murder plan. The defendant denied it was his voice on the tape.

``On the tape appear some words that are vulgar,'' Ambriz said. ``I had a good education with my family. The Spanish that I speak is perfect. It is educated Spanish.''