MAN GUILTY IN RAPE OF CLERK.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Daily News Staff Writer

A U.S. Borax subcontractor was convicted Thursday of kidnapping and raping a Mojave gas station clerk, who was bound and had her eyes and mouth taped shut during a seven-hour ordeal.

The compelling testimony of the 20-year-old victim helped convict David Adams, 38, who faces more than 100 years to life in prison when he is sentenced later this month in Superior Court in Bakersfield, prosecutors said.

``She was an excellent witness,'' Kern County Deputy District Attorney Judy Krech said. ``Her composure was together the entire time. I found her testimony very admirable, and her ability to remember and to observe everything around her despite not being able to see completely convicted this guy.''

Adams, a former Rosamond resident who lived for four weeks in the White's Motel next to the service station where the victim worked, showed no reaction as the verdicts were read, Krech said.

He was arrested Dec. 28 in his motel room, where the woman said she was taken during part of her ordeal. It was within an hour of her release at a Mojave restaurant.

Adams was found guilty of 21 counts of forcible rape, kidnapping for rape, and other sexual assault charges with regard to the Mojave victim.

The jury, however, deadlocked on an attempted kidnap charge in which Adams was accused of trying to abduct a 26-year-old woman Dec. 21 from a supermarket parking lot in Rosamond.

Adams also was charged with assault with intent to commit rape for a Nov. 21 incident involving his ex-girlfriend, but jurors convicted him of a lesser charge of spousal abuse.

Along with the victim's testimony, Krech said work done by the crime lab connected the victim to Adams' motel room through the use of trace evidence of hair and fiber.

The victim's eyebrow hairs were detected on crumpled duct tape found outside the motel room's bathroom window, and a fiber from a blanket in his car was found on her clothing, Krech said.

The gas station attendant was abducted Dec. 27 at knifepoint when she went outside to clean bathrooms in preparation for closing for the night.