A 16-year-old girl told her father and a friend that 21-year-old Esteban Cruz had raped her after she passed out in his bed in November. The girl, her father and a friend then lured Cruz to a park and beat him within an inch of his life with a baseball bat.

Cruz was lured to Temecula, California by the 16-year-old girl. When Cruz arrived at the park, the girl's 20-year-old friend, Andre Edwin Dickerson, beat him within an inch of his life with a baseball bat.

During the savage attack, Cruz suffered skull fractures, broken bones, a lung injury, and lost teeth.

The girl's attorney, David Grande, tried to portray Cruz as a predator out for young girls.

Grande showed a text message from Cruz asking the girl to drink, smoke marijuana, and have sex with him. He included her responses including,

"Can't you take a hint," she wrote. "I'm not interested."

At one point, the girl sent Cruz a text asking why he was trying to have sex with a 16-year-old.

"It's the thing I do," he replied.

Grande said the girl, who maintains that the sex was against her will, didn't report the rape to police because she was afraid of retaliation.

"He's a cruiser. He's a predator," Dickerson's attorney, Richard V. Swanson, said of Cruz after the hearing.

After the girl was charged, Cruz's behavior was brought to light, and he was charged with sodomy of a minor and is in jail on a $50,000 bail.

The trio: the girl, her father David Mills, and friend Andre Edwin Dickerson, pleaded not guilty to the vigilante attack, and now the trio will sand trial.

Judge Michael Rushton said, "Obviously, vigilante justice isn't a defense to a criminal charge."

David Ray Mills, 36, his 16-year-old daughter, and her friend, Andre Edwin Dickerson, 20, have pleaded not guilty to attempted murder, mayhem, assault and vandalism, court records show. The girl has been charged as an adult.

The prosecutor of the viglante attack, Scott Mason, showed graphic photos of Cruz's injuries on an overhead projector in court. 

Despite the vigilante attack that injured him so severely and left him bleeding and unconscious in the park, Cruz managed to drive himself home after the attack. His mother found him and took him to the hospital. 

Initially Cruz lied about why he was in the park, and even after admitting he was there to see the girl, he told the deputy he didn't think she was responsbile for the attack and didn't want to involve her in the vigilante attack's criminal case.

Investigator David Gorlicki testified in court about the vigilante attack.

When investigators questioned the girl after the beating, she initially identified not Dickerson but another man as the attacker. She also accused Cruz of "coming on to" her at the park said Gorlicki.

Later, she admitted asking Dickerson to beat Cruz up and said she, her father, Dickerson and another teen girl walked to the park together, Gorlicki said.

The girl said she planned to "act innocent" and tell Cruz she needed to use the bathroom, where Dickerson would be hiding with the bat.

The other teen girl - who has not been charged - told investigators that Cruz screamed as Dickerson beat him and described the "cracking sound" of the bat hitting his body. She said Dickerson yelled at Cruz during the attack, accusing him of liking to rape girls.

Dickerson and Mills are being held in jail, and the girl at juvenile hall. Bail for all three is set at $1 million.