By Sofia Leguria
WOODLAND, CA – The sexual assault trial of the accused proceeded Wednesday here in Yolo County Superior Court.
The accused is facing two counts of assault with intent to commit mayhem, rape, sodomy, or oral copulation; sexual penetration against will; sexual battery; attempted rape by force; assault by force likely to produce great bodily injury, 2nd degree robbery, preventing or dissuading a witness/victim by threat or force; and preventing or dissuading a witness/victim from reporting.
The Sacramento man is accused of multiple crimes, in two separate incidents, the first in 2018 in Santa Rosa, and the second in 2020 in Davis.
He continues to deny the accusations.
On Aug. 2, 2020, a female victim was walking home to her apartment in Davis, CA when she was grabbed from behind and strangled until she lost consciousness. When she came to she was being held down by a man who was trying to open her legs while yelling that he was going to f**k her.
She pleaded to him to let her go home, and eventually he stopped and walked her home to her apartment. She told the police that she knew her roommate would probably be home, so she wanted to go there so she would not have to be alone with the accused any longer.
The victim asked the accused to walk her to her apartment to keep them moving toward her home where she knew she could get help.
The man’s defense attorney, Jesse Ortiz, insinuated in court that the victim asking to go home was an invitation for the accused to go with her to her apartment.
When the accused’s room was searched, the jacket he was wearing to walk the victim home was found. This is corroborated with the security camera footage from the apartment.
When the accused was arrested he told officers on the scene that he had never stopped in Davis for anything more than a tank of gas on his way to Santa Rosa.
This is even after the officers told him that his DNA and fingerprints were found in a women’s apartment in the city of Davis, according to the prosecution.
On the body camera footage that was played in court Wednesday, the accused tells officers, “You can say whatever you want but I was not in Davis… I don’t know how to explain that, I do not understand what happened.”
When arrested, the accused was out on bail after a previous arrest for attacking another woman last August walking on a different bike trail in Davis.
Later in February the Santa Rosa police connected the accused with another assault from 2018.
The trial will reconvene Thursday.
