Rape defendant testifies alleged victim lied about age

It wasn’t until a 17-year-old Los Osos girl’s friend made an off-the-cuff remark about the girl viewing 18-and-over websites that the Cayucos man on trial for repeatedly raping her realized she was a minor, the man testified Thursday.

Oscar Higueros Jr., 40, a former volunteer Cayucos fire captain, took the stand for the first time in San Luis Obispo Superior Court on Thursday, defending himself against 35 charges, including multiple counts of forcible rape that allegedly occurred in July and August 2014.

Following weeks of sordid testimony from witnesses that included Higueros’ past girlfriends and the alleged victim, Higueros recounted at the direction of his attorney his own abusive upbringing; how he met the teen — referred to in court as Jane Doe — through a Craigslist ad; their activities together after she moved in with him; and the moment he allegedly realized she was a minor.

Prosecutors will cross-examine Higueros once the defense completes its questioning.

Prosecutors allege that Higueros responded to an ad on Craigslist in late July 2014 and paid $150 to have sex with the girl, who was being pimped out by a San Francisco man. A day after they had sex, Jane Doe moved in with Higueros after she had an argument with her mother.

Richard Scott Brooks, 40, has already been convicted of pimping the teen and was sentenced to 61 years and eight months to life in prison in a separate trial in early January.

The teen previously testified that Higueros wanted her to enter into a “master-slave” contract and compelled her to sell marijuana and make sex videos with him, which she said he planned to post online for money. She added that he told her he committed the unsolved 1990 murder of his father, Oscar Higueros Sr., to intimidate her into staying with him.

On Thursday, Higueros’ attorney, Jay Peterson, had Higueros recount his childhood, which the defendant described as “an unsettled home life” that included a physically abusive father, an incarcerated mother, and sexual abuse while on a family trip to South America in the second grade.

Asked whether he has ever told anyone that he murdered his father, Higueros said no.

He said he met Jane Doe through a Craigslist ad, which he testified was from a man and woman seeking sex with another man. He responded to the ad, meeting the alleged victim and Brooks at her mother’s Los Osos home on July 28, he said. Higueros testified that he didn’t bring any money, thinking Brooks only wanted to watch the two have sex.

“I took a gamble (that) it was kind of a kink thing,” he testified, acknowledging that he had been involved in several online “trysts” before. “If the other subject (money) came up, I was going to hightail it out of there.”

He said Jane Doe appeared to be older than 18 and he didn’t question her or Brooks, who he initially assumed was her boyfriend. Higueros said he and Jane Doe videotaped their sex with his iPhone, but that the videos were for the two to share, not for profit.

The two met several times later without Brooks, and Higueros let the girl stay at his house following her fight with her mother, he testified. When Jane Doe dissolved the relationship with Brooks, he let her move in and the two began to bond over their histories of childhood abuse, he testified.

“I was really impressed by what she’d done, like she had really moved through it,” Higueros testified. “I’d say we were pretty smitten.”

He said the two had sex frequently over a couple of weeks, so much so that he had to take her to a doctor. When she talked to the doctor alone, that reinforced his belief that she was an adult, he said.

The two also shared non-sexual activities during their time together, he said, including going to the beach, restaurants, the movies, camping and going several times to a skydiving business in Lompoc, although she could not be convinced to skydive, he testified.

The prosecution previously said that cellphone data revealed that Higueros and Jane Doe looked up information about statutory rape and mandatory reporting.

After Peterson and Deputy District Attorney Greg Devitt debated before Superior Court Judge Jacquelyn Duffy, without the jury present, about what could be revealed about Doe’s prior sexual history, Peterson asked Higueros about the Internet searches.

Higueros said that he became concerned when he learned of sexual activity between Doe, who he believed was 18, and a 17-year-old female friend and whether he was required to tell authorities. That idea was later abandoned.

Higueros discovered on Aug. 28 that Jane Doe’s true age was 17, he said. He said she and the female friend were at his house on Jane Doe’s computer when the friend said, “I thought you had to be 18 to enter these websites.”

Higueros testified that the revelation led to an argument.

Peterson asked him whether he would have had sex with her had he known she was 17.

“I don’t believe we would have ever met,” he replied. Asked to answer the question, he said, “No.”

Higueros was arrested less than a week after that incident, he said.

The trial is scheduled to continue Friday morning, with Higueros resuming his testimony.

This story was originally published February 18, 2016 at 9:23 PM with the headline "Rape defendant testifies alleged victim lied about age."