A former sheriff’s office colleague of Michael Rodrigues,
accused of raping four women, testified this morning that the
suspect attempted to assault a woman in a hotel room while in
Laughlin, Nev., in 2004 while working as contracted security agents
for a biker event.
A former sheriff’s office colleague of Michael Rodrigues, accused of raping four women, testified this morning that the suspect attempted to assault a woman in a hotel room while in Laughlin, Nev., in 2004 while working as contracted security agents for a biker event.
Rodrigues, an ex-San Benito County Sheriff’s Sergeant, is accused of raping four women between 1999 and 2007, when a grand jury indicted him on charges connected to three of the allegations. Prosecutors added a fourth suspected victim in the fall of 2008.
John Klauer was on the stand today and described the trip in May 2004. He testified that he and Rodrigues had shared a hotel room and went out drinking one of the nights. He said he was awoken by Rodrigues and a woman in the room whom he believed – by appearance – to be a prostitute and drug addict.
“When I woke up and saw them, he threw her on me,” Klauer testified.
The witness alleged that Rodrigues placed the women on top of Klauer “in a sexual type position” while “thrusting her buttocks and pushing her on me.”
He recalled Rodrigues telling her to have sex with Klauer, and that’s when Klauer said he pushed her off while the suspect helped to remove her. From there, he testified, Rodrigues and the woman moved to the other bed, while Klauer testified that he turned in the opposite direction and tried to sleep.
Asked by defense attorney Art Cantu why he hadn’t tried to stop him, and Klauer replied, “If he’s going to have an affair, that’s on him – not me.”
Klauer said he didn’t believe the two were having sex at that point, and he recalled how a couple of minutes later the woman leaned over Klauer’s bed and whispered to him, according to the witness: “I don’t want anything to do with him, something to that effect.”
Klauer testified he told her, “If you don’t want to be here, get out.”
Upon Cantu’s questioning, Klauer clarified that he was OK with her staying, but not with them having sex there.
Klauer said Rodrigues heard his comment to the woman and “decided to take her in the bathroom.”
“He was pleading and begging for her to give him oral sex,” Klauer said.
He testified the two were in the bathroom about five minutes and that it became heated and he heard them moving around, while he recalled hearing the woman saying: “I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to do anything.”
Klauer then recalled how both came out of the bathroom and when he turned to look, they were completely naked.
“I pretty much yelled at him and told him to get out of the room,” Klauer testified.
Klauer contended he had believed Rodrigues then threw her onto the bed because he heard a thump.
Klauer testified he still was turned in the opposite direction and that he heard her say such phrases as “No, stop,” and that she became gradually louder and louder, prompting him to turn again and see what was going on, according to the testimony.
He described how she had been lying on the bed, stomach and face down, with her feet off to the side of the bed pointing toward Klauer. He recounted seeing Rodrigues holding her hands above her head and that it had appeared he was trying to “penetrate” her. Klauer testified the woman shifted around to avoid Rodrigues’ efforts and that he heard her say, “No, stop – leave me alone.”
That is when Klauer recalled Rodrigues telling him, “Come over here and hold this (expletive) down for me.”
Klauer said he then grabbed Rodrigues and held him against the wall, telling him to get her out of the room.
“He grabbed her and threw her out of the room,” said Klauer, adding how she had been naked and also alleging Rodrigues followed up by tossing her belongings out as well.
Cantu asked Klauer why he had not taken action earlier to remove the woman from the room, and the witness replied, “She had plenty of chance to leave and she continued to stay around with Mike.”
During Cantu’s cross examination, Klauer described how he reported the incident to former sheriff’s Sgt. Wes Walker a couple of weeks later in 2004 and he confirmed that the next time local investigators picked up on the matter was during their probe in the summer of 2007.
Klauer also noted during cross examination how the two had been drinking earlier that night hours before the suspected incident and how they had consumed enough to be legally intoxicated but not “inebriated.”
Asked by Cantu if he had a motive for testifying, and Klauer responded, “Yes, to tell the truth about the incident.”
Cantu attempted to diminish Klauer’s credibility by questioning whether his security business, Presidential Protective Services, conducted a private investigation on Rodrigues in 2006. The witness responded that “unofficially, no,” it did not, but how Klauer’s wife had been helping a friend and that a member of Presidential’s staff did the probe on his own time.
Klauer also confirmed there was surveillance involved and it included some surveillance while Rodrigues – Klauer’s supervisor at the time in the sheriff’s office, where they spent 20 years working together – was on duty.
Two supposed victims testify
On Thursday, the rape trial continued with the prosecution and defense questioning the remaining two suspected victims among four total, while the other two major witnesses took the stand Wednesday.
Attorneys began direct and cross examination of the fourth suspected victim, identified as Jane Doe 1, in the afternoon today. She testified that Rodrigues sexually assaulted her on two occasions, once in mid- to late 1999 and a second time several months later.
She noted how she met Rodrigues in 1999 when he had been looking for a missing dog. He had dropped a card in her mail slot and then the two bumped into each other in front of her Hollister house, she testified. From there, she said, the two developed a relationship that lasted somewhere between seven months and a year, according to the witness’ account, though she stressed she was uncertain about dates.
The first suspected incident occurred when the witness said she had attempted to break off the relationship. She testified that Rodrigues showed up at her house and rang the doorbell and pounded on the door until she let him in.
“He sat me on the bed, pushed me back, tore off my underwear and proceeded to have intercourse,” said the witness, who had to stop several times while apparently overtaken by emotions.
Below is video of opening statements at the Rodrigues trial. The story continues under it.
The witness went on upon further questioning: “I was telling him not to. I didn’t want it. It’s like he was not listening to a thing I was saying.”
In direct examination, she testified he had gotten dressed and left after having sex. Defense attorney Art Cantu in cross-examination asked her to elaborate further, and she recounted how she had used her legs while trying to fend him off, wrapped them around his neck and “squeezed until he finally said to let me go.”
She said he hit his head on a chair, became distraught and then proposed to her. She testified that Rodrigues – married at the time – proposed to her a total of three times in distressful situations, but that she had no inclination, until later, that Rodrigues already had been married. After she said “no,” she contended, he then got up and left.
The second suspected incident with the same woman was several months later, she said. She testified that while she had been working at Safeway in early 2000, he saw her there and later called her at the store. He was “very insistent” and wanted to see her on her lunch break. She said “no,” she testified, but ended up meeting him because he “was very persuasive.”
That time, she testified, he pushed her against the couch, pulled down her pants and had sex with her. She said she responded, “No, no, leave me alone,” and that she never saw him again after that.
Deputy District Attorney Patrick Palacios asked why she had not reported the incidents or other times she said he had allegedly, angrily showed up to her house – another party reported it to authorities – and she responded, “Because I didn’t want to embarrass him in front of his friends.”
She testified that routinely, Rodrigues had been working a lot of overtime and would come to her home after getting off around midnight – she said he almost always came over in the patrol car and in his uniform – while usually staying until 2 a.m. or 3 a.m.
Witness: Encounter began at Jerry’s
During the morning session of the trial, the prosecution had called the third suspected victim. She alleged that through several meetings with Rodrigues, she had been raped and unlawfully penetrated.
The witness testified that the first incident occurred in February 2007, beginning at the parking lot of Jerry’s Restaurant on San Felipe Road, when Rodrigues pulled up behind her car as she had sorted through CDs. At exactly 2:14 a.m. – as the victim precisely recalled – he tapped on the window and asked what she was doing.
She alleged that after a brief conversation, Rodrigues told her to follow him to a location, which she could not recall as it was her first time being in the city. After driving her to the location and leaving her there alone for 30 minutes to tend to training a new deputy, she testified that Rodrigues came back and unlawfully penetrated her.
That incident was not the last between the two, she testified, as she later said she saw him again a week and a half later and that the two even entered into somewhat of a relationship.
However, in June of 2007, the suspected victim said she noticed a change in his behavior after she had told him she had been raped by another man previously outside of the county. Upon hearing this information, the victim said he “became more aggressive” toward her, which led to another rape incident.
She testified that in July, she went to his house and engaged in consensual sex but that after another incident, in which she alleged he used excessive force with a vibrator – and that she told him to stop – she was left with two weeks of abdominal and vaginal pain.
After that incident, the witness said she moved to San Diego but returned to the area in September 2007 after she got a job in San Jose, which prompted her to move in with Rodrigues – on a “strictly platonic” basis – because she had no other place to stay.
She and her son, who moved with her from San Diego, only stayed until Nov. 5 because of another incident in which she alleged Rodrigues forced himself on her three days before they moved out. Hollister police were called for a civil standby so she and her son could move out of Rodrigues’ house.
Cantu followed the testimony with a cross examination focusing largely on how the two were dating after she had been raped.
She admitted giving her phone number to Rodrigues when the two first met – prior to the unlawful penetration – and sending pornographic images to him in March 2007, after the first suspected incident but before the second. Cantu asked why she had sent the pictures, to which the witness responded, “He asked for them.”
After questioning her about the rental agreement she had with Rodrigues, Cantu asked her if she was suing the defendant, to which she responded that she was, along with the county, for an unspecified amount of money.
The questioning came to a point where the defense asked why she had moved in with the man who previously sexually assaulted her. She responded by saying: “Because I’m stupid. Because I needed that job badly.”
