Former SLO County Uber driver guilty of raping, assaulting and stealing from female riders
A former Uber driver from Santa Maria was found guilty Friday of 13 felonies — including three counts of rape — for sexually assaulting and stealing from five women across the Central Coast.
Following a trial featuring more than two weeks of testimony, jurors Friday took less than three hours to find Alfonso Alarcon Nunez guilty of all charges against him, including multiple counts of rape, assault with intent to commit rape, oral copulation, first-degree burglary, and entering a property with the intent to commit theft or another felony.
It was not immediately clear Friday what minimum sentence Alarcon Nunez faces when he’s sentenced by San Luis Obispo Superior Court Judge Craig van Rooyen on April 26. However, the rape counts for which he was convicted carry the possibility of life in prison.
Should he be released from prison, Alarcon Nunez would be required to register as a sex offender for life, according to court records.
The criminal case is one of several involving ride share service drivers who committed sex offenses against female riders on the Central Coast and has led to calls for improved safety protocols for the services.
Neither Alarcon Nunez’s attorney nor a spokesman for the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office could immediately be reached late Friday following the hearing.
Alarcon Nunez has been in San Luis Obispo County Jail custody since his arrest in January 2018.
Following the hearing Friday, van Rooyen ordered that Alarcon Nunez remain in County Jail without bail pending his sentencing.
Evidence showed how Uber driver preyed on intoxicated women
During the trial, prosecutors alleged that, in late 2017 and early 2018, Alarcon Nunez preyed on intoxicated women who either ordered a ride from Uber or were otherwise intercepted by the driver as he drove for the ride share service throughout Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.
Addressing the jury in San Luis Obispo Superior Court on Tuesday, county deputy district attorney Melissa Chabra laid out what she described as Alarcon Nunez’s pattern of behavior.
After intercepting other ride requests or accepting rides legitimately, Chabra said, Alarcon Nunez would follow the intoxicated victims into their homes, sexually assault them, steal their wallets and electronics, and in some cases debit victims’ accounts on Venmo, a payment phone app separate from Uber.
Jurors heard testimony from the five women, as well as other women who told jurors of incidents in which they refused ride offers from Alarcon Nunez and/or had property stolen from him.
One of the women testified that she and another of the victims were given a ride after becoming intoxicated — and possibly drugged — at the former SLO Brew bar and concert venue in downtown San Luis Obispo in January 2018. At the time, the woman had worked at SLO Brew for approximately six months.
After drinking a “foggy” beer at the venue, the woman testified that she next remembers being dropped off by an Uber driver with the second victim at the victim’s Mustang Village apartment and feeling like she had gotten sick.
She then remembers waking up the next morning on her friend’s couch “feeling sicker than I ever felt before” and sore, with her underwear out of place and her clothes, cell phone and wallet missing.
Her friend also discovering her laptop missing, and the two tried “to figure out what was happening,” the woman testified.
Once the two 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, the victims received Facebook messages from a “Bruno Diaz” asking how they were and referencing the previous night, claiming that he had sex with one of the women.
Ultimately, investigation in that case and another rape led officials to Alarcon Nunez, and evidence collected including videos, images, social media activity, Venmo transactions and stolen property linked the Santa Maria man to two other women who were victimized but had not come forward.
One of the women was not aware Alarcon Nunez had assaulted her when contacted by investigators who saw the woman in footage stored on Alarcon Nunez’s phone, according to testimony.
Earl Conaway, Alarcon Nunez’s defense attorney, on the other hand, told the jury that his client admits he stole items and overcharged his ride customers, including victims in this case.
But Alarcon Nunez denied sexually assaulting anyone, and Conaway argued 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.”
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 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.
