Palm Desert Man Accused Raping Intoxicated Woman in Court Tuesday

A 19-year-old Palm Desert man accused of raping an intoxicated woman after she left a party is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday Oct. 15.

Alexis Haro is charged with one count each of rape of an unconscious victim, assault with intent to rape and sodomy of an intoxicated victim.

He was initially arrested several days after the alleged June 21 assault, then posted a $50,000 bond. He was arrested again Thursday - about a week after charges were filed - and was being held at the county jail in Indio in lieu of $75,000 bail, according to jail records.

The alleged victim came forward June 22 to report that she had been attacked the night before at an apartment complex in the 72600 block of Fred Waring Drive in Palm Desert. She told Riverside County sheriff's Investigator Sean Freeman that she left a party in the complex around 11 p.m. and was grabbed by Haro while walking to the front of the complex to meet her boyfriend.

Though she tried to fight him off, Haro allegedly pulled her into a bathroom inside the complex's pool area, Freeman wrote in a declaration in support of an arrest warrant.

Haro allegedly forced the woman to the bathroom floor, removed her underwear and pants and raped her for about 10 minutes. A friend of Haro's, who had also been at the party, came into the bathroom, got into a scuffle with him and took the woman to his apartment, according to the declaration.

The man said the woman was "very intoxicated" and that he and Haro found her lying unconscious in the pool bathroom and cleaned her up.

"(He) stated that Haro made comments indicating that he wanted to have
sex with (her)," Freeman wrote.

The two men locked the bathroom door and left, then the man who was at the party with the woman returned five minutes later to check on her, according to his account.

He told investigators he found Haro "lying on top of (the woman) and appeared to be having sex with her . . . Haro jumped up and zipped up his pants. Haro told (the man), 'She wouldn't let me do anything. Don't accuse me of something I didn't do,'" the declaration states.

Haro told authorities he'd spoken to the woman during the party and later found her in a bathroom, intoxicated but awake, according to Freeman.

Haro said he left to call his girlfriend, and when he returned a short time later the woman "pulled at his clothes and touched him seductively," leading him to believe that she "wanted to have sex," but he was unable to perform, the declaration says.

A sexual assault exam at Eisenhower Medical Center determined that the woman had injuries consistent with the alleged attack, and authorities found a shirt in Haro's closet matching the description of the shirt he wore that night, according to Freeman.

Haro is scheduled to appear Tuesday at Larson Justice Center in Indio.

Reported by City News Service