A registered sex offender already flagged by the state as an above-average risk to reoffend has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting two women inside a Newport Beach home nearly three years ago, after breaking in around 3 a.m. and attacking one of the victims while she slept. Navdeep Singh Jhaj, now 35, admitted to the crimes as part of a plea deal with Orange County prosecutors that resolves the case ahead of a sentencing hearing scheduled for November 20.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Jhaj had a one-night stand with one of the women before he later sexually assaulted her, and when she rejected his subsequent attempts to date her, he reentered the house that same night and went upstairs to the bedroom of a second female occupant, where he straddled her in bed. He allegedly told her he had been watching her and that she had invited him over, and at another point told a different victim his name was Sunny while pretending to be a friend of another resident.
Police testimony during a preliminary hearing described how one of the victims confronted Jhaj inside her bedroom that night, and he claimed he had just showered and kept up the ruse for about 10 minutes before she managed to persuade him to leave, as reported by MyNewsLA.com. When officers arrived at the residence, Jhaj fled on foot, touching off a multi-day search that ended with his arrest in neighboring Irvine on March 7, 2023.
Charges Pared Down Under Plea Deal
Jhaj had originally pleaded not guilty to the charges in March 2023, per the Los Angeles Times, but he has now pleaded guilty to the remaining felony counts, including two counts of assault with intent to commit a sexual offense in a first-degree burglary and one count of sexual penetration of an unconscious victim. He was also charged separately with failing to notify law enforcement within five days of a change of address, a registration violation tied to his status as a sex offender.
As part of the agreement, a first-degree burglary charge was subsequently stricken, and prosecutors dismissed a count of sexual penetration by a foreign object by force, a related count involving belief the victim thought Jhaj was someone else, and a misdemeanor count of touching an intimate part of another person, according to the Los Angeles Times report, which noted that Sara Cardine contributed to it.
A Pattern Dating Back to 2015
Jhaj's sex offender status stems from a 2015 sexual assault of a woman at a friend's home, according to the Times. The same underlying incident is described in more detail by MyNewsLA.com, which reports that Jhaj entered the residence in October 2015, climbed into bed with the woman, and sexually assaulted her, leading to an October 2017 guilty plea to felony sexual battery. In that earlier case, Orange County prosecutors dismissed two felony counts of sexual penetration by a foreign object and one misdemeanor count of touching an intimate part in exchange for the plea, and Jhaj was sentenced to one year in jail and five years of probation.
Before his 2023 arrest, California's Megan's Law public registry listed Jhaj as a registered sex offender whose risk of reoffending was officially designated as above average, the Los Angeles Times reported at the time. Jail records reviewed by Patch showed that following his 2023 arrest, Jhaj was held on $1 million bail and listed his occupation as a chef while living in Orange, California, and his initial arraignment took place in a jail courtroom in Santa Ana before pretrial proceedings moved to the Harbor Justice Center in Newport Beach.
Registration Rules and Statewide Context
The change-of-address charge against Jhaj rests on California Penal Code Section 290, which requires registered sex offenders to notify local law enforcement within five working days of moving, according to FindLaw. A willful failure to comply is itself a felony carrying up to three years in state prison when the underlying sex crime was a felony. Since January 2021, the state has also operated under a tiered registration system established by Senate Bill 384, which replaced mandatory lifetime registration with 10-year, 20-year, or lifetime registration windows depending on the severity of the offense and the offender's risk level, per the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Jhaj's case is the second major sex offender prosecution to move through the Harbor Justice Center this year. In May, Hoodline reported that 61-year-old registered sex offender David James Hanggie was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison at the same courthouse following his own guilty plea. Jhaj is now set to be sentenced on November 20, and it remains to be seen what specific prison term the judge will impose under the terms of his plea agreement, or how his tier status under SB 384 will apply if he is eventually released.
