PITTSBURG — An Idaho man was freed from jail through a plea deal that required him to plead guilty to lesser offenses in the brutal sexual assault of a teen girl in 2002.

But first, 50-year-old Eric Ferguson had to go to court and confess.

“On April 2nd, 2002, around 3:30 a.m. I was parked near a trail opening in Oakley, California. Around that time I saw (the girl) walking on a trail alone. I took advantage of the fact that it was dark. She was alone, and we were complete strangers,” Ferguson said at the July court hearing, using the pseudonym “Jane Doe” to refer to the victim. “When Jane Doe got closer, I approached her and threatened her to get into the back seat of my car.”

After describing an act of forcible oral copulation in detail, Ferguson concluded, “for 23 years I had evaded

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