Westminster : Deputy Ordered to Stand Trial on Rape Charges

A former Orange County deputy sheriff was ordered Monday to stand trial on charges of raping a 20-year-old woman he was investigating in a case involving illegal magazine sales.

Robert J. Minty, 37, who resigned from the Sheriff’s Department two months ago, said he was disappointed. “I thought the truth would come out, but I guess not enough of it did,” he said.

Minty’s lawyer, Byron K. McMillan, argued to Municipal Judge Alan N. McKone in West Orange County Municipal Court that the woman’s allegations were “crazy” and that she accused Minty of rape only after deciding that she had not gotten a fair deal in her misdemeanor case.

But Judge McKone, after listening to the woman testify more than six hours at a two-day preliminary hearing, ordered Minty to stand trial.

The woman, who now lives with her father in Beverly Hills, testified that while she was living in Northern California Minty called her and told her that she was suspected of selling magazines in Orange County without a license. He bought her a round-trip airline ticket to Orange County so she could take care of the charge, she testified. He picked her up at Los Angeles International Airport, she said, and they went to a Westminster motel where they spent the night.

The woman said she feared that if she didn’t sleep with Minty he would see to it that she went to jail. She said Minty told her that her case was in his hands.