Trial begins for SLO County Uber driver accused of ‘heinous’ sex assaults against riders

Jurors heard opening arguments in the trial of a former Uber driver accused of sexually assaulting and stealing from five women in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties, as well as testimony from one of the alleged victims.

Alfonso Alarcon Nunez of Santa Maria has been in custody at the San Luis Obispo County Jail since his arrest in January 2018.

He has pleaded not guilty to 13 felony charges, including committing assault with the intent to commit another felony (rape or burglary), forcible rape, rape by use of a drug, oral copulation by use of a drug, first-degree burglary, and entering a property with the intent to commit theft or another felony.

Prosecutors allege that in late 2017 and early 2018, Alarcon Nunez preyed on intoxicated women who either ordered a ride from Uber or otherwise crossed his radar as he drove for Uber throughout Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

Addressing the jury Tuesday, Deputy District Attorney Melissa Chabra said that after intercepting other ride requests or accepting rides legitimately, Alarcon Nunez would follow the intoxicated victims into their homes, sexually assault them, steal wallets and electronics, and in some cases debit victims’ accounts on Venmo, a payment phone app separate from Uber.

Chabra said that the jury would hear from his five victims, as well as from five additional women who will testify that Alarcon Nunez attempted to get them to accept rides or stole property from them.

The District Attorney’s Office has not charged Alarcon Nunez with those alleged crimes.

Earl Conaway, Alarcon Nunez’s defense attorney, told the jury that his client admits he stole items and overcharged his ride customers, including victims in this case.

But he denies sexually assaulting anyone, and Conaway implied through his opening statement and later questioning that at least one of the alleged assaults was a consensual act.

“He is a thief,” the attorney said. “That does not mean he’s a rapist.”

If convicted of all charges, Alarcon Nunez, 42, could face life in state prison.

Prosecutor reveals timeline of driver’s alleged crimes

The case involves five alleged victims, who are being referred to in court by pseudonyms that include their true first names.

Because they are alleged victims of sexual assault, The Tribune is referring to the women as Victims 1-5 to avoid publicly identifying them.

“At the end of this trial, you will know these names. You will know these women,” Chabra told the jury in her opening statement.

Chabra presented a quick timeline of events and told how police investigations into three of the victims’ allegations led officials to two more women who had not contacted police.

According to Chabra, Victims 1 and 2 both worked at SLO Brew in downtown San Luis Obispo and on Dec. 17, 2017, attended a show there where they both got very intoxicated, with Victim 1 extremely so. In order to get home, they ordered an Uber back to Victim 2’s apartment.

As they struggled to get Victim 1 out of the car at their drop-off location, Alarcon Nunez walked up and offered the two women and the Uber driver help in getting Victim 1 inside. The driver, who was busy cleaning vomit from the inside of his car and apparently thinking the man was a neighbor, eventually left the three.

Inside the apartment, Alarcon Nunez sexually assaulted both women, photographed and videotaped them, then stole laptops, phones and the apartment’s interior security camera, Chabra said. The women do not recall the crimes, she said.

As those crimes were being investigated, on Jan. 14, 2018, Victim 3 went to a party at a friend’s house in San Luis Obispo. She too found herself intoxicated at some point and a friend offered to get an Uber home with her.

As the two waited for their ride, Alarcon Nunez pulled up in his car and asked for Victim 3 by name, and whether she requested a ride, Chabra said. Thinking he was their legitimate driver, the two got into his car.

The two also didn’t think much of it when Alarcon Nunez asked where they wanted to go — which a legitimate driver would know — or when Victim 3’s friend received a phone call from the actual driver asking where they were, Chabra said.

Alarcon Nunez offered to help the friend carry Victim 3 inside, and according to Chabra, the friend took him through an unlocked back door. After he left, the friend locked up Victim 3’s apartment before going to her own home, but didn’t secure the back door, according to the prosecutor.

The next day, Victim 3 awoke to soreness and displaced articles of clothes, with her cell phone missing. Unable to reach anybody, the woman drove around until she could find a friend to take her to the emergency room.

A sexual assault forensic exam was administered to Victim 3. DNA found on Victim 3 matched Alarcon Nunez, Chabra told jurors, as did results of an exam on Victim 2.

After investigators closed in on Alarcon Nunez due to the Venmo transactions, a subsequent search of his home and phone’s SD memory card revealed stolen property, social media activity showing he contacted his alleged victims, and photos and videos of some of the victims from the nights of their assaults, Chabra said.

Videos will be shown to the jury that shows Alarcon Nunez performing sex acts on two of the women and shows a third half-naked, Chabra said.

The seized evidence led investigators to Victim 4, who had taken a ride from Alarcon Nunez after getting intoxicated and separated from friends on Jan. 5, 2018, Chabra said.

Victim 4 has a similar story of waking up to weird Venmo charges and no recollection of what happened.

But Chabra said when the woman contacted the driver who charged her through Venmo, he told her she had broken items in his car and threatened to call police if she didn’t pay.

Detectives also located another woman, Victim 5, who had a similar experience after an Uber ride from a wine festival in Santa Barbara on July 15, 2017. She woke up at home the next day with her apartment’s door broken and property missing.

“He stole their sense of safety and security in their homes,” Chabra said.

In his opening arguments, defense attorney Conaway told jurors that Alarcon Nunez did steal from his riders, but he’s not guilty of “the heinous allegations he faces today.”

Conaway said that at the time, Alarcon Nunez was facing a deteriorating relationship with the mother of his child, and he was pursuing other women.

The attorney said that a sexual encounter between his client and Victim 2 was consensual, and that video of the interaction will prove it.

The first victim testifies

Victim 1 testified that she met at the second woman’s apartment in Mustang Village on Dec. 17, 2017, to have a few drinks before heading to the Drag Show at SLO Brew, where she had worked for approximately six months. She said they each drank three shots of whiskey and a cocktail before going to the venue.

She was 19 at the time, she said.

While at the show, one among a group of five men who mingled with the women’s group offered Victim 1 a beer, which she and Victim 2 both drank from.

Victim 1 described the beer as “foggy,” and had a smell and taste that she, as a server at the establishment, did not recognize.

“It didn’t taste like any of the ones we had at (the bar),” she testified.

Almost immediately after sipping the beverage, Victim 1 said she began to become worried about what was in the drink, before she blacked out.

Next she remembers, she was being dropped off by an Uber at Victim 2’s apartment and feeling like she had gotten sick.

She then remembers waking up the next morning on Victim 2’s couch “feeling sicker than I ever felt before” and sore, with her underwear out of place and clothes, cell phone and wallet missing.

She described Victim 2 discovering her laptop missing, and the two trying “to figure out what was happening.”

Once they realized something was wrong, they called 911 and told the dispatcher that they feared they had been drugged.

After having a sexual assault forensic exam and being interviewed by police, Victim 1 received Facebook messages from a “Bruno Diaz” asking how she was and referencing the previous night, claiming that he had sex with Victim 2.

At the direction of a detective, Victim 1 attempted to keep communication with the person ongoing in an effort to identify him. That effort was unsuccessful, she testified.

Under cross examination by Conaway, Victim 1 acknowledged that she has filed a civil lawsuit for damages against Alarcon Nunez, Uber, SLO Brew, and the original driver who picked her up.

Conaway asked whether Victim 1 had a financial interest in a conviction in the criminal case, which would bolster her pursuit of civil damages. She said she couldn’t answer.

“Uber, SLO Brew, they have big pockets, correct?” Conaway asked.

“I suppose,” Victim 1 responded. “I wasn’t a big part of the civil suit. It was something I left up to my lawyers.”

But Victim 1 said she does believe the other parties, in addition to Alarcon Nunez, were responsible for her sexual assault.

Conaway also referenced evidence in the case that will supposedly show that in her 911 call, she first told dispatchers she had been drugged and wanted “a test to prove it.”

As news of Alarcon Nunez’s alleged crimes became public, the fact that there was underage drinking at SLO Brew that night later led to Alcoholic Beverage Control enforcement against the venue, as reported in SLO New Times.

A case management conference in Victim 1’s civil case is scheduled to be heard in San Luis Obispo Superior Court in September.

Other ride-share drivers have assaulted women on Central Coast

The Alarcon Nunez case is at least the third involving allegations of sexual assault against a ride-share service driver in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties.

Shadi Abdul Aziz, a former Uber driver in Santa Maria, pleaded guilty to rape in October of 2019.

In January 2020, Jason Fenwick, a former driver for the service Lyft, was sentenced to 10 years in state prison for sexually assaulting a customer he had picked up from the scene of her boyfriend’s DUI arrest in Nipomo.

Testimony in the Alarcon Nunez case is scheduled to continue Wednesday.

This story was originally published March 17, 2021 at 9:00 AM.