The Region - News from March 4, 1985

A Cuban exile who allegedly ran several cocaine “rock houses” has been convicted of slashing and disfiguring the faces of three young women, one of whom required 500 stitches. Raul Matos, 29, who immigrated to the United States in 1980 in the Cuban boat lift, was found guilty of three counts of mayhem, three counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one count of attempted forcible oral copulation. Prosecutor Stanley Weisberg said Matos is apparently one of the thousands of hardened criminals and misfits who escaped in the boat lift along with other Cubans. The assaults occurred at two “rock houses”--fortified residences where cocaine is sold in crystalline form--he allegedly operated in Inglewood and South Los Angeles.