Jurors Acquit Former Deputy Accused of Rape

A former Orange County sheriff’s deputy who resigned under pressure after admitting to a sexual rendezvous with a woman he was investigating was acquitted by a Superior Court jury Wednesday of raping the woman under color of authority.

Robert J. Minty, 38, admitted that he spent the night with the 21-year-old woman at a Westminster motel in March but said she had sex with him willingly.

The woman, who now lives in Beverly Hills, testified that she feared Minty would send her to jail if she did not have sex with him.

At the time, she was suspected of a misdemeanor offense of soliciting magazine sales without a license. Minty had asked her to fly to Orange County from Northern California to settle the case. He paid for her flight, picked her up at Los Angeles International Airport and paid for her motel room. When they arrived at the motel, he told her the room was for both of them.

The woman called a rape crisis center the next day, and officials there took her to the police. Minty resigned after his arrest the next month.

“He resigned because he realized that he used very, very poor judgment and that he should not be in law enforcement,” said Byron K. McMillan, his attorney. “But poor judgment does not make him a rapist.”

If convicted, Minty could have been sentenced to three years in prison. He was charged with three counts of rape under “color of authority,” which means that instead of raping a woman by physical force, he was accused of using his power as a police officer to coerce her into having sex.

Minty was charged with three counts because the woman said he coerced her into having sex twice at night and once again in the morning, before her scheduled court appearance.

McMillan said Minty was delighted and relieved by the jury’s verdict.

“How nice to get this behind him before Thanksgiving,” McMillan said.

McMillan argued in court that the woman’s testimony “is inherently incredible. There is not one iota of evidence that she resisted . . . or said why don’t you get your own bed . . . or would you please not do it.”

Minty did not testify, but the jurors--seven men and five women--listened to a three-hour videotaped interview Minty had with police investigators.

The woman testified that Minty told her in the motel room before they first had sex that whatever happened to her in court was completely in his hands. She said he told her that she could end up serving 10 years in prison, although the charge was only a misdemeanor.

“I thought I had no other choice,” she said. “I thought I would go to jail if I didn’t have sex with him.”

Minty is now working as an accountant but will probably go into real estate, McMillan said.

“He knows that he can never go back into law enforcement ever again,” McMillan said. “But he’s learned a lot from this experience. So have I.”

McMillan said every public official with arrest powers, whether police officer, judge or immigration official, should take note of Minty’s case before having sex with someone with an issue before him.

“Because if they ever accuse you of rape, it’s almost automatic: You’re going to be in trouble,” McMillan said.