Kristin Smart records reveal details about drugs, rape videos found at Paul Flores’ home
Newly unsealed court records reveal details about the cache of evidence seized at the home of Paul Flores, who is accused of raping and murdering missing Cal Poly freshman Kristin Smart in 1996.
The evidence — rape pornography, homemade videos and so-called “date rape” drugs — support San Luis Obispo County officials’ allegations that Flores has long been a sexual predator.
The records also include allegations of sexual misconduct by 30 women, some of whom told investigators they were drugged before they were sexually assaulted by Flores in incidents going back to the late 1990s.
“Paul Flores is a defendant who likes to rape and drug intoxicated women,” deputy district attorney Christopher Peuvrelle said in San Luis Obispo Superior Court Wednesday. “That’s who he is.”
Smart, 19, was last seen with Flores leaving a house party and heading to the Cal Poly dorms on Memorial Day weekend 1996.
Her body has never been found, although investigators believe it was buried at the Arroyo Grande home of Paul Flores’ father, Ruben Flores, and “recently” moved, according to court documents.
Paul Flores, 44, of San Pedro has pleaded not guilty to murdering Smart, while his 80-year-old father is charged with criminal accessory.
Documents related to an unsuccessful prosecution attempt to charge Paul Flores with two counts of rape involving Los Angeles women were unsealed in court Wednesday at the request of the defense, due to a gag order that prohibits any of the parties involved from commenting on the case outside the courtroom.
Prosecutor says rape videos found at San Pedro home
On Feb. 4, 2020, San Luis Obispo County and Los Angeles County officials searched Paul Flores’ San Pedro home the same day as similar searches were carried out at the two homes of his parents.
During the search, investigators seized several electronic devices.
“On these devices was discovered numerous homemade videos of Paul Flores having sexual intercourse and sodomizing women who drift in and out of consciousness,” Peuvrelle wrote in the San Luis Obispo County Attorney’s Office’s Statement of the Case, unsealed Wednesday.
As was revealed in court Wednesday, those videos were found stored on an external hard drive, in a folder labeled “Practice,” the record shows.
One of the women appears in a video with a red ball gag in her mouth, the document says.
Detectives also found evidence of Google searches on Flores’ home computer for “Real Drunken Girls — Drugged and Raped while Passed Out” and similarly titled pornography.
Another video shows a masked man break into a house and rendering a “school-aged girl” unconscious before raping her, the prosecutor wrote.
“This is a fetishized rape fantasy video,” Peuvrelle wrote.
He wrote that investigators also found searches for a term linked to child pornography.
Officials also seized Flores’ cell phone, which allegedly yielded leads to “additional rape victims over his years of living in San Pedro.”
Drugs found could render victims ‘confused and unresponsive’
During the search of Flores’ San Pedro home, detectives also found two prescription medications that could be used as “date rape” drugs, Peuvrelle wrote. The Tribune is not identifying the two substances.
According to the document, Dr. Owen Shea, a San Luis Obispo anesthesiologist, told San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office Det. Clint Cole that the water-soluable drugs are both in the opiate family create narcosis.
One of the drugs, if mixed with alcohol, would cause the person who ingested it to show significant changes in behavior in a short amount of time because the mixture is synergistic, Shea said, according to Peuvrelle’s filing.
The mixture would have an anesthetic effect and cause memory loss and amnesia, the doctor said.
“Depending on the quantity of drugs and alcohol, it is Dr. Shea’s opinion that a normally unwilling sex partner may allow unforced sexual intercourse to occur becuase that person becomes confused and unresponsive,” Peuvrelle wrote.
When Cole described the state of the women allegedly seen in Flores’ homemade videos, Shea reportedly said the description “would indicate a classic case of those victims being drugged,” the filing says.
People in that state may be able to respond with noises or words, Peuvrelle wrote, but not at a level to understand their surroundings and be able to provide consent to a sexual act.
The court filing goes on to describe allegations of sexual misconduct against Flores by 30 women, some of whom told investigators that they suspected they were drugged before waking up in Flores’ San Pedro home without a recollection of how they got there.
At least four of those women allege that Flores raped them.
On Wednesday, Superior Court Judge Craig van Rooyen denied a prosecution motion to add two charges of rape of an intoxicated person against Flores, based on two of those women’s alleged rapes in Los Angeles County.
Van Rooyen said he denied that motion due to “thin” evidence to support rape charges in Smart’s alleged murder, adding that to file those charges locally was to “invite error” in the case.
Van Rooyen said that Los Angeles County authorities may file the cases in their jurisdiction if they choose.
Paul Flores faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted
Paul and Ruben Flores were arrested in connection to Smart’s disappearance on April 13 in San Pedro and Arroyo Grande, respectively, and the District Attorney’s Office announced the criminal charges against the men the following day.
Paul Flores and his father pleaded not guilty at their arraignment on April 19, when van Rooyen ordered Paul Flores be held without bail.
Paul Flores remains in San Luis Obispo County Jail, where he’s being held without bail for the remainder of proceedings.
His father was released from County Jail on April 22, hours after Superior Court Judge Craig van Rooyen significantly lowered his bail because he is not a flight risk or a risk to public safety.
Ruben Flores remains out of custody.
Paul Flores faces a sentence of 25 years to life if convicted of first-degree murder.
Ruben Flores faces a maximum of three years if convicted of the accessory charge, though it is not clear if that sentence would be served in County Jail or state prison.
A 12-day preliminary hearing, in which evidence will be presented, is set to begin Aug. 2.
This story was originally published July 15, 2021 at 5:50 PM.
