Rape trial ends in guilty verdict

“As soon as they told me, I was crying. And really, there was that sense of, ‘he can’t hurt me anymore. He can’t hurt other women anymore. He is at least going to jail for a while now,’” she said. 

Abdelfattah — whose defense attorney, Cherie Wallace, did not immediately respond to request for comment — now faces up to 16 years in state prison, San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said. 

The case was what Alpana Samant, a San Mateo County deputy district attorney who specializes in sexual assault cases, termed “quintessential date rape.” 

Abdelfattah — who was in town for business — had met up with the victim through a dating app, though she’d specified she wasn’t looking for a hookup. After a drink, Abdelfattah and the victim returned to his hotel, Samant said. 

“They decided to go to his hotel, but the lobby was very loud, and so he said, ‘Well, let’s go to my room. I promise we don’t have to do anything. I just want to talk,’” Samant said. “They’re talking, they’re kissing, which is all consensual. And at some point he starts wanting to do more, and she says, ‘No, you know, I have to get going, thank you,’ — and he just won’t stop.” 

After the incident, the victim told her friends what had happened. The police were called, a rape kit was provided and the case began winding through the justice system in earnest. It can be an arduous process, the victim acknowledged, but she was certain in her desire to take the case to trial. 

“I was adamant that it was going to be tough, it was going to be hard, but that he needed to be held accountable,” he said. 

Sexual assault cases can be a double-edged sword, Samant said. They’re more likely to go to trial than other crimes, with victims available to testify as witnesses, but receiving a guilty verdict can be challenging and the process deeply retraumatizing. 

The DA’s Office follows state law, which blocks attorneys from forcing victims of sexual assault and domestic violence to testify. Instead, attorneys and advocates work with the victim, seeing if they’d be willing to testify and deciding whether to make a reasonable offer to the defendant. 

“We’re like, ‘look, these cases are hard. It is a credibility contest. It’s going to be your word versus his word,’” she said. “But we wouldn’t be here, we wouldn’t be at the stage of going to trial if, at the time of the filing, the DA didn’t think there was enough evidence to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt.” 

In the case against Abdelfattah, Samant said, the DA’s Office made a plea deal for felony false imprisonment, which doesn’t carry sex offender registration status. Abdelfattah declined that offer. 

Moving forward to trial, the DA’s Office emphasized the inconsistencies in Abdelfattah’s story — he first said nothing happened, then told officers his penis had “grazed” her after learning the victim had been taken in for a rape kit, Samant said. 

“The factor that made this case viable was his inconsistent story,” she said. “Her reaction was very believable.” 

For the victim, testifying to a jury was a challenge, but also an opportunity to share the truth of what had happened to her and ensure it wouldn’t happen to other women, she said. 

“You have to take into account that there’s the defense attorney who’s looking out for her client. They’re trying to make you seem as noncredible as possible, which I think is a tough situation to have to face,” she said. “[I was] just reminding myself that I was not the one on trial, I didn’t do anything wrong. He did something wrong.” 

The path to receiving a guilty verdict against an abuser is different for every survivor of sexual assault, she acknowledged. But for her, testifying against Abdelfattah was made possible with a support system — from friends and family to those at the DA’s Office — willing to recognize her strength. 

“The key for me, at least, was having a big support system,” she said. “What I loved about my team, specifically my support system, is they kept reminding me, ‘you know, you had to get out of the situation too.’ Highlighting and remembering that you had strength in the situation as well, and just kind of holding on to that as you go through the whole process.”