Evidence emerges in trial of former San Mateo police officer

In pressing 14 felony charges against Winchester, Deputy District Attorney Alpana Samant alleged in her opening statements Winchester used his position as a police officer to exploit the vulnerabilities of three women in San Mateo County and one woman in Sacramento in four separate incidents between 2013 and 2015.

One woman who has alleged Winchester raped her while he was on duty as an officer for the Los Rios Community College Police Department in Sacramento had a felony arrest warrant associated with her name and was fearful of having her three children taken away from her if she was arrested, said Samant. Another woman with a history of drug-related run-ins with the police had been found by Winchester at the Hillsdale Shopping Center with an Oxycontin pill before he allegedly groped her breasts and genitals, she said.

A third woman who was stopped by Winchester at the now-defunct Motel Avalon in San Mateo told him she was on probation before he allegedly groped her over her clothing and told her to take off all her clothes under the guise of a probation search, noted Samant. On Oct. 19, 2015 — the night Winchester is alleged to have convinced an intoxicated woman to drive behind his patrol car from the Motel Avalon to a deserted portion of Coyote Point Recreation Area — he allegedly told her it looked like she wanted to go to jail. Before he allegedly raped the woman, said Samant, Winchester told her she had three options, which the woman took to mean she could choose between having sex with him in three different ways.

“That night, he did not go to work to protect and serve the community that employed him,” she said.

Samant noted that though the allegations against Winchester involve four different women in four different locations, they shared a fear of what might happen to them if they didn’t submit to his actions.

“They will all tell you that the defendant was able to get what he wanted because of that fear,” she said.

Defense

In his opening statements, Winchester’s attorney Paul DeMeester asked the jurors to keep an open mind throughout the presentation of evidence — which he said could include everything from oral testimony, audio and video recordings, electronic communication and physical items — and through all the arguments put forth by the prosecution and defense counsel.

DeMeester also asked the jury to weigh the connections between the three women Winchester is said to have assaulted in San Mateo County, as well as the reluctance on the part of the four women to report the incidents to authorities.

“I am asking you to keep an open mind all throughout,” he said. “None of them went to any authority anywhere to complain of what an officer had done.”

Alleging the woman who claimed Winchester raped her at the Coyote Point Recreation Area Oct. 19, 2015, followed Winchester into the park voluntarily, DeMeester said Winchester suggested the woman follow his patrol car in the direction of an ATM where she could get cash to spend the night at the Motel Avalon, where he found her sleeping in her car earlier that night. DeMeester alleged the two did not have sex in the park and instead shared a few cigarettes before Winchester suggested she spend the rest of the night there to sleep off her intoxicated state.

When the woman was awakened in her car by a Burlingame street sweeper around 5 a.m., she didn’t recall how she got to the stretch of El Camino Real where her car was parked, said DeMeester, who added the Burlingame police officers who responded to the city employee’s call were actively pursuing a driving under the influence investigation on her. But he noted the woman was never charged with driving under the influence, and a medical exam performed after police opened an investigation into her claims didn’t indicate she was raped.

DeMeester noted the woman who accused Winchester of raping her at Coyote Point Recreation Area urged the woman who was allegedly assaulted by him at the Hillsdale Shopping Center parking lot, to talk to her attorney, who directed them to report the Sept. 15, 2015, incident with inspectors at the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office. He noted the two women are also believed to be involved with connecting the woman who was allegedly assaulted by Winchester at the Motel Avalon Sept. 22, 2015, to the unit within the District Attorney’s Office investigating the incidents.

Knowledge of other incidents

Samant emphasized that each of the alleged victims had no knowledge of the other alleged incidents when they were allegedly assaulted by Winchester. She said it wasn’t until December of 2015, after all of the incidents alleged in Winchester’s charges occurred, that the woman he allegedly raped at Coyote Point spoke with the woman he allegedly assaulted a month before at the Hillsdale Shopping Center. She described the two women as acquaintances who knew each other through a mutual drug dealer, and said they later told investigators they heard another woman had been sexually assaulted by Winchester as well.

DeMeester also asked jurors to consider the pressure the woman who said she was assaulted by Winchester at the Motel Avalon faced after he stopped her that night, noting she would have been required to report any contact with a police officer to her probation officer and could have said he attempted to rape her to distract from any criminal activity she might have been associated with that night. He added it would be important for jurors to think about any inconsistencies they observe between witnesses’ testimonies in court and what they reported on prior occasions.

Samant pointed to electronic records showing Winchester’s dispatch history and the GPS locations of Winchester’s patrol car as evidence corroborating the alleged victims’ accounts. But DeMeester contended those records can only confirm limited information about the interactions he had with the women, such as the times and locations of the encounters.

Samant also asked the jury to consider the doubts the women had about whether they would be believed if they reported what happened to authorities, adding they all weighed how their word would have been weighed against a police officer’s accounts after the alleged assaults.

San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said the trial is estimated to last three weeks after jury selection, which was completed Tuesday afternoon.

anna@smdailyjournal.com

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