Jose Castañeda found guilty in domestic violence felony case.

Former Salinas City Councilman Jose Castañeda, whose fall in politics came almost as quickly as his rise, was found guilty Wednesday of stalking, kidnapping and battering an ex-girlfriend for a 2015 incident in which he dragged the woman inside a van, drove her away from her home and repeatedly hit and terrorized her for hours.

A Monterey County Superior Court jury deliberated for two days before reaching its decision on the trio of felony counts, but was unable to decide if Castañeda was guilty on a fourth count, a misdemeanor charge of sexual battery for squeezing the victim’s breasts while he held her captive in his mother’s van on a dark street in the early morning of Sept. 5, 2015.

He faces a maximum of nine years and eight months in prison. Sentencing is set to take place at 9:30am on June 22.

The victim, surrounded by friends and family, wept softly in the audience as the clerk read the verdicts in courtroom. She and her supporters left without speaking to reporters, as did a few supporters who were there on Castañeda’s behalf.

Immediately after the jury was dismissed and had left the courtroom, Superior Court Judge Carrie Panetta ordered Castañeda remanded without bail—bailiffs placed him in handcuffs and he was taken into custody. Before he was escorted to Monterey County Jail, though, he asked for a hearing on firing his attorney, Jaime Segall-Gutierrez, for providing inadequate representation or having a conflict with him. While the judge initially set what’s known as a Marsden hearing, she later rescinded it because it would only apply to a court-appointed attorney and Segall-Gutierrez was privately retained.

Segall-Gutierrez said his client wanted to remain free on bail pending sentencing. The judge’s response, in essence: Tough luck.

Over the past two days of deliberations, the jury sent out four questions to the judge, all of them involving that fourth count of sexual battery—as he dragged her into the back seat of the van and squeezed her breasts, the victim, known in court as Jane Doe 1, said Castañeda asked her if that’s how she closed deals at work.

“I thought he was going to rape me,” she testified during the trial.

A second former girlfriend of Castañeda’s testified he also had struck and shoved her during their relationship. She was identified in court as Jane Doe 2.

The nature of the jury’s questions about the sexual battery charge wasn’t disclosed, and the District Attorney does not intend to pursue a retrial on that count.

Outside the courtroom, prosecutor Elaine McCleaf said she hopes the verdicts send a clear message that domestic violence victims can seek out and receive justice in Monterey County.

“I applaud this Jane Doe and Jane Doe 2 in this case for having the courage to come forward and answer all of the questions from the attorneys,” McCleaf says.