Former San Mateo cop gets 81 years prison

“It’s an appropriate sentence given the level of harm he caused,” Serrato said.

Defense attorney Paul DeMeester, who represented Winchester, called the sentence draconian.

“It’s out of proportion to the facts as presented,” DeMeester said.

David Norris, interim police chief for San Mateo, said in an email Thursday that the department is grateful to the diligent efforts of the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office, courts, and staff “in their pursuit to hold Winchester accountable for his heinous acts.”

“While these reprehensible actions are in no way representative of the professional men and women who are dedicated to keeping this community safe every day,” Norris said, “We must constantly strive to ensure that we are reinforcing integrity and accountability in everything we do. We owe that dedication to our San Mateo community.”

Winchester sexually assaulted three women in San Mateo during 2015 and two women in Sacramento when he worked in 2013 as a police officer for the Los Rios Community College District, prosecutors said.

Winchester was convicted Oct. 9 in San Mateo County Superior Court after a 20-day jury trial that resulted in guilty verdicts on all 14 charges — including kidnapping to commit sexual assault, forcible rape and oral copulation under color of authority.

San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe had said after the jury verdicts that the county “remains a good pro-accountability and law enforcement community, because we hold everyone accountable — especially a cop.”

“Cop or criminal, prince or pauper, we are going to hold you accountable if we can prove it,” Wagstaffe said.

Winchester took the stand for four days at his jury trial. Jurors didn’t find him credible, Wagstaffe said.

Prosecutors alleged Winchester groped a 24-year-old woman found with an Oxycontin pill in a parking lot of San Mateo’s Hillsdale Shopping Center in September of 2015. Prosecutors also alleged Winchester told a 22-year-old woman to take off all her clothes September 2015 under the guise of a probation search at the now-defunct Motel Avalon in San Mateo.

He told a woman in October 2015 to follow him from the Motel Avalon to the Coyote Point Recreation Area with the intent of having sex with her, prosecutors said.

Winchester was previously an officer for the Los Rios Community College Police Department and prosecutors alleged he forced a 21-year-old woman he found sleeping in a Sacramento building’s exterior elevator with her three children to have sex with him in July of 2013. That was one of Winchester’s two sexual assaults in the city, prosecutors said.

Gabe Ross, associate vice chancellor for the college district, thanked prosecutors and jurors Thursday in an email.

“We are extremely happy that justice has been served for Noah Winchester’s victims,” Ross said. “The Los Rios Police Department is committed to keeping our college communities safe, and we will vigorously pursue severe consequences for anyone whose actions belie that commitment.”

Winchester has been in custody on $3.1 million bail since his arrest July 21, 2016.

ryan@smdailyjournal.com

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