Trial begins for man accused of attempting to rape Cal Poly student, kidnap Atascadero woman
Jurors heard chilling details of two attempted rapes allegedly committed by an Atascadero man, including one in which he is accused of attacking a Cal Poly student in her apartment in 2017.
That attack was later linked to Tyrone Anderson, who was arrested in May 2018 following a separate alleged assault and attempted kidnapping of another woman in Atascadero.
A Good Samaritan intervened in that attempt, and police announced shortly after his arrest that DNA evidence tied Anderson to the earlier attack in San Luis Obispo.
Anderson’s defense attorney, however, told the jury that the first alleged victim, a 20-year-old woman, is a “scammer” and a “liar” with a history of concocting “elaborate” schemes for money and who benefited academically from the alleged attack.
And the second woman, with whom Anderson had a brief consensual sexual relationship in the past, actually attacked Anderson after the accidental car crash, causing him to flee, the attorney said.
Anderson has pleaded not guilty to six felony counts including assault with intent to commit rape, kidnapping to commit robbery or rape, sexual battery, assault with intent to commit great bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, and first-degree burglary.
If the jury currently comprised of 12 women and two men (including alternate jurors) find him guilty of the most serious charges against him, Anderson, 39, could spend the rest of his life in state prison.
He has been in custody in San Luis Obispo County Jail since his arrest, in lieu of $1.1 million bail.
An alleged attack near Cal Poly
In her opening statement Monday, Chief Deputy District Attorney Lisa Muscari described to the jury how the young woman, a Cal Poly student living in a two-bedroom, first-floor apartment on Foothill Boulevard, was studying alone at home the night of Dec. 4, 2017.
While dressing in her room after taking a shower, the woman — whom is being referred to in the trial only by her first name — was drawn to her living room by an alarming sound and a flash of light.
In the living room, Muscari said, the undressed woman came face to face with Anderson, who put his hand over her mouth and held her from behind while binding her wrists and ankles with duct tape. The victim told investigators that the man — who the woman said she did not get a clear look at, but whose voice was recognizable — then tried to sexually assault her on her bed, Muscari said.
The woman pleaded with her attacker and told him that she was a virgin, Muscari said.
“She begged him over and over and over,” Muscari said.
Next thing she knew, she heard the front door open and close and the assailant was gone, she said.
Muscari said the woman will testify that she struggled to lock the front door with her hands and legs still bound by tape, and used her “Siri” function on her cell phone to call 911.
Muscari said jurors will hear the 911 call and see body camera footage of officers responding to the apartment to find her naked with tape still around her wrists behind her back.
San Luis Obispo police officers canvassed the neighborhood and brought in a search dog but were unable to locate a suspect.
But DNA samples from the woman’s body were analyzed by the California Department of Justice, Muscari said, and within a few months the DNA samples proved positive for Anderson or a male member of his family.
Though Muscari did not reveal it to the jury, court records show that Anderson had previously been sentenced to two years in state prison in 2012 after a no contest plea to a felony charge of inflicting corporal injury to a spouse or cohabitant.
But Muscari also alluded to the jury that the defense would attempt to impeach the young woman’s credibility, admitting that she “did not lead the life of a choir girl,” but that Anderson “really did all these terrible things to her.”
Defense accuses woman of ‘lies’
But Anderson’s defense attorney claims his client had nothing to do with the first alleged incident, which he said in no uncertain terms was a made-up event.
Calling the 20-year-old victim a “liar,” defense attorney Patrick Fisher said his defense team found confirmed evidence that the woman attempted elaborate scams on unsuspecting men on different occasions in the past, faking pregnancies and miscarriages to get money out of a past boyfriend, a fact confirmed by Muscari in her opening statements.
“You’re going to see that she made this whole thing up,” Fisher said. “She has no problem telling the kind of lies that could wreak havoc on someone’s life.”
Fisher said several things about the alleged attack don’t add up, and that the body camera footage shows the tape around her wrists and hanging off her body look as if she staged the bindings, which “doesn’t look like anything someone would have trouble getting out of.”
Furthermore, he said jurors will see through her “act” in videotaped interviews, and that she had “ample reasons” to make up an attack, noting that she was on academic probation and was excused from a final exam the next day.
The attack conveniently occurred when he roommate wasn’t home, Fisher said, and the DNA of an unknown, third person was found in the samples taken from the woman’s body.
Moreover, the woman identified two photos of other men shown to her by investigators and didn’t recognize Anderson when later shown his photo, Fisher said.
Good Samaritan interrupts alleged kidnapping
On May 7, 2018, Muscari said Anderson attacked his second victim, a former co-worker, after stalking her and crashing his car into hers at a traffic stop in Atascadero.
After the woman confronted Anderson, he attacked her and after a struggle, attempted to force her into the back seat of his car at knifepoint, Muscari said.
“She feels if she’s put in that car, she’s going to be raped and killed,” Muscari said.
A passerby came to the woman’s aid, wrestling Anderson from her. Anderson then fled in his car, parking it in a nearby private driveway, but returned to the scene after putting on different clothes, the prosecutor said.
By then, police had arrived and were alerted to Anderson’s presence by the alleged victim, who spotted him. Following a foot chase, Anderson was found and apprehended by Atascadero Police Chief Jerel Haley, Muscari said.
The prosecutor alleged that clothes matching a description given by the Cal Poly student were found at Anderson’s home during a search.
She told jurors that Anderson “needs dominance and control over women, whether he knows them or not.”
Defense claims a misunderstanding
Fisher said that Anderson did know the woman involved in the Atascadero incident in May 2018, and the two lived at the same apartment complex. He told jurors that surveillance footage shows Anderson leaving the complex about 40 minutes before she left at about 8 a.m.
Fisher said Anderson was getting coffee and breakfast when he happened to get into a non-serious car crash with the woman on a “busy” street down the block from a local school.
Contrary to the prosecution’s theory, Fisher said Anderson attempted to call police to document the crash but the woman became irate because of fear over her immigration status.
When Anderson grabbed the woman by the arm to stop her from leaving the scene, Fisher said, the woman pulled a knife and cut the back of Anderson’s hand, which Fisher called a “defensive wound.”
“Things got crazy,” Fisher said.
Though it’s not completely clear from his opening statement, Fisher suggested Anderson was struggling with the woman near the backseat of her car because that’s where he was attempting to retrieve his car’s paperwork.
“He sees what is happening, all these people yelling at him” and he fled instead of getting hurt, the attorney said.
Jurors are expected to hear testimony from both alleged victims as early as Tuesday. Fisher said Anderson will testify in his own defense as well.
This story was originally published March 2, 2020 at 7:22 PM.
