Noah Winchester might take stand today

Of particular focus this week for Deputy District Attorney Alpana Samant and Paul DeMeester, Winchester’s defense attorney, was the testimony of a 35-year-old woman named Sherry C. who alleged Winchester directed her to drive behind his patrol car from the Motel Avalon to a deserted portion of Coyote Point Recreation Area after he encountered her sleeping in her car in the motel parking lot late at night Oct. 19, 2015. When she took the stand Monday, Sherry C. said she met Winchester earlier in the day after he responded to a call from the manager of America’s Best Value Inn, where she had gotten into a fight with two friends she had been using drugs and alcohol with the night before. 

When he tapped on her car window at the Motel Avalon hours later, Winchester allegedly told the woman she looked intoxicated and searched her car, finding a bottle of prescription pills without her name on it and a bottle of alcohol. The woman said he told her he could take her to jail, and led her to a dark alley to search her body, where he allegedly groped her breasts and genitals. Sherry C. said Winchester said she needed to get a hotel room that night, but, without cash, was not allowed to rent a room at the motel. 

Though she didn’t want to go with Winchester to find an ATM, Sherry C. said she feared going to jail and being separated from her dog Honey if she didn’t comply with the police officer. 

“I just did what he said,” she said. “I wanted it to be over.” 

Sherry C. said Winchester told her to follow him and he would lead her to an ATM nearby before leading her into the Coyote Point Recreation Area, where he told her she had three options, which she took to she could choose between having sex with him in three different ways. But DeMeester has contended Winchester told her before they left the motel to turn left at an intersection to find gas stations with ATMs while he turned right to continue on with his shift. DeMeester referred to an interview between inspectors at the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office and Winchester Oct. 23, 2015, some three days after Sherry C. reported the incident to Burlingame police officers. 

He said Winchester in the interview said he was surprised to see Sherry C. drive her car behind his patrol car at the entrance of Coyote Point Recreation Area after directing her to find cash, and, in a decision Winchester would later describe as “boneheaded,” suggested she drive further into the park behind his car so she could find a place to sleep off her intoxicated state. 

DeMeester noted Winchester’s reasoned in the interview Oct. 23, 2015, that he knew Sherry C. would continue to be a problem later on during his shift or for other officers on the beat and thought the park could be a place where she could spend the rest of the night. He also confirmed with Rick Decker, a senior inspector with the District Attorney’s Office who was a police sergeant for the San Mateo Police Department the night of the incident Oct. 19, 2015, that Winchester participated in the interview voluntarily and on his day off. 

Both Samant and DeMeester asked Decker to explain police records showing the GPS locations of Winchester’s patrol vehicle that night as well as dispatch logs outlining Winchester’s activity during two of the encounters with alleged victims. 

Having conducted an investigation of the GPS data from Winchester’s patrol car, Decker said the information from both Winchester and Sherry C.’s testimonies matched up with the route the GPS data shows Winchester taking that night, with the exception of a stop Winchester said he made just outside Coyote Point Recreation Area to ask Sherry C. why she was still following him. Because the system records patrol cars’ locations every seven seconds, Decker explained he felt the interaction Winchester described would have registered as a longer stop in the GPS data. In response to DeMeester’s questions about the gaps between the GPS signals, Decker acknowledged Winchester’s car could have been at the entrance of the park for up to 20 seconds. 

In response to Samant’s questions about Winchester’s communication with dispatchers that night, Decker acknowledged the lack of communication from Winchester between the time he did a search of Sherry C.’s record shortly after 1:10 a.m. and 2:40 a.m., which is when he is believed to have left the Coyote Point Recreation Area in his patrol vehicle. 

When he was asked by Samant whether that pattern of communication was usual for police officers, Decker explained officers are trained to call for help or report their whereabouts when they encounter someone in a secluded area or someone that is under the influence of a substance. Though he acknowledged the liability and safety concerns related to these types of interactions is somewhat mitigated by their practice of wearing body-worn cameras in recent years, Decker noted San Mateo police officers were not wearing the devices in 2015 when the incident took place. 

Decker said there are some police officers who have made mistakes or not paid as much attention to detail as they could have, but he described Winchester’s decision not to communicate with others when he encountered Sherry C. as unusual. 

“It’s just not that common,” he said. “Noah Winchester is not that kind of cop. He wasn’t sloppy.” 

anna@smdailyjournal.com 

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