‘Something sexual had occurred,’ Nipomo woman testifies at former Lyft driver’s trial
A Nipomo woman told a jury she doesn’t remember anything about her encounter with a former Lyft driver accused of sexually assaulting her following a ride home from a DUI stop, but she said she had a feeling in her body the next day that “something sexual had occurred.”
Jason Lamont Fenwick was allegedly caught on home surveillance footage committing the assault, but his attorney has argued that the alleged victim — who The Tribune is referring to as Jane Doe — initiated the contact and that it was consensual.
Fenwick faces three felonies related to sexual assault and burglary, as well as a misdemeanor for allegedly photographing the encounter without consent.
If found guilty of the most serious charge, assault with intent to commit a sex crime during the commission of a burglary, Fenwick, 52, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, the District Attorney’s Office previously said.
Testimony in the trial began Nov. 19. Proceedings resumed Monday following a weeklong break for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Captured on video
According to testimony previously given in the trial, Arroyo Grande police officers arrested Jane Doe’s boyfriend for DUI during a traffic stop early on the morning of Nov. 3, 2018.
Because she could not drive and didn’t have a friend to pick her up, a police officer ordered her a Lyft ride with the app on her phone, the officer testified.
Fenwick accepted the ride and took the woman back to her Nipomo home while her boyfriend was taken to County Jail.
The lead investigator in the case, Sheriff’s Office Detective Gower Slane, testified that the boyfriend’s home surveillance cameras — including at least one camera in the bedroom, unbeknownst to Jane Doe at the time — captured Fenwick undressing the woman and assaulting her on her bed.
Defense attorney Jeff Chambliss, through his questioning, claimed that the video shows Jane Doe persuading Fenwick to stay, and leading him by hand into the bedroom.
Though a portion of the footage was shown to the jury, the screen was positioned in the courtroom so that it was not visible to members of the audience.
Deputy District Attorney Christopher White, who told jurors that the video speaks for itself, also told them they will have to decide whether Fenwick believed Jane Doe was capable of giving consent, and if so, whether that belief was reasonable.
‘Something sexual had occurred’
On Monday, the alleged victim testified on the stand with a victim’s advocate by her side, less than 10 feet from where Fenwick sat with his attorney.
Jane Doe spoke calmly and directly under questioning, but several times had visible difficulty holding back tears when describing intimate details.
Under questioning by prosecutor White, the woman described going out with her boyfriend and having several drinks at Jocko’s Steakhouse in Nipomo, and later Bill’s Place in Arroyo Grande. She recalled having at least six drinks over several hours.
She said she didn’t realize her boyfriend, who was supposed to drive, was intoxicated until they were pulled over and he was arrested.
She said her memory is “extremely foggy” about what occurred after that, but she vaguely recalled getting into a Lyft and feeling even more intoxicated as the ride continued.
She testified that she did not remember any conversation she had with the driver, nor allowing him into the home. Her last memory of the night, she said, was lying clothed in her bed and staring up at the ceiling.
The next day, beside feeling ill from the alcohol, the woman said she physically felt as though she had “been hit by a bus,” with bruises on her hips and pain in her groin and crotch area.
She had a feeling “that something sexual had occurred,” the woman testified.
Later that night, her boyfriend informed her that he viewed the bedroom surveillance footage and that she had been sexually assaulted, she said.
Though she testified that she “suspected” he had cameras inside his home based on the amount of security equipment he had installed outside, Jane Doe under cross examination said she felt “betrayed” by the cameras, which she said “caused a huge problem in our relationship.”
When she watched the video, she testified, she got sick.
Under questioning by Chambliss, Jane Doe admitted that she initially lied to Slane, the detective, when she said she knew about the cameras.
Asked about a civil complaint-turned-class action lawsuit against Lyft filed by attorney James McKiernan on her behalf, Jane Doe admitted that she has accepted $25,000 from a state victims fund, and a $5,000 loan from McKiernan on any future damages.
She testified that she has not been able to work since the day she learned of the assault, and that she feels an incredible amount of guilt and shame for drinking too much that night and possibly causing her boyfriend’s DUI.
“I’m pretty ashamed of myself,” she said, choking back tears.
Effects of alcohol
Before the Thanksgiving break, jurors heard testimony from the defense’s main expert witness, Dr. Alan Donalson, a pharmacologist specializing in how drugs and alcohol affect the human brain.
Donalson testified that alcohol consumption causes “memory dysfunction” where the drinker’s brain “ceases recording your experiences over time,” leading the person to later forget events.
“After a night’s sleep, it’s like it didn’t happen,” Donalson testified. “You simply stop recording your experiences.”
He testified that drinkers who are “blacked out” on alcohol do not act any differently in the moment from other moderately inebriated people, and “you can’t tell looking at someone whether they’re recording their experience” with memory.
“You don’t have to be falling down drunk to be in a black-out,” Donalson said.
Chambliss previously argued in his opening statement that the encounter between the woman and Fenwick was consensual, but that it’s likely Jane Doe can’t remember her own actions.
“These issues come up pretty regularly in alcohol-related cases,” Donalson testified.
‘I’m not that type of guy’
On Nov. 22, Det. Slane testified that he was called to investigate the case after Jane Doe went to the hospital for a sex assault test, which he called a “very invasive procedure.”
Slane testified that once he identified Fenwick as the Lyft driver, he worked with Lompoc police to conduct a ruse on Fenwick to get him into an interrogation room. Under the premise of having some stolen mail of his, Slane coaxed a suspicious Fenwick to the Lompoc police station for an interview.
In a video of the interview played for jurors, Fenwick denied any sexual encounter with Jane Doe but said she was “all over” him to the point of him fighting her off, and repeatedly asked him to stay with her.
When Slane asked Fenwick during the interview if he had done anything sexual with the woman, he replied: “I’m not that type of guy. I look out for people.”
Finally, when Slane said he didn’t believe him, Fenwick admitted that he did engage in some sexual activity with the woman, at her insistence, but the two did not have intercourse.
When asked if the woman was too impaired to consent, Fenwick replied: “She was sober enough.”
After showing the jury surveillance footage of Fenwick inside the woman’s home, White pointed out that there were no clips of Fenwick “fighting off Jane Doe,” as he alleged.
Testimony is scheduled to resume Tuesday.
This story was originally published December 3, 2019 at 4:45 AM.
