Deputy Faces Hearing on Rape Charge

An Orange County deputy marshal, once fired by the Costa Mesa Police Department, has been arraigned on charges of raping a woman while they were on a date last summer.

Donald Michael De La Mater, 41, of Irvine, was released on his own recognizance Thursday after pleading not guilty in Harbor Municipal Court to one count of rape. Neither he nor his attorney could be reached for comment Friday.

The prosecutor in the case said Friday that De La Mater hit the woman so hard during the attack that an eye was swollen shut. De La Mater’s defense attorney has said his client is innocent and questioned why the woman waited four months to report the incident.

De La Mater, who has worked as a county deputy marshal since 1979, is on paid administrative leave pending the conclusion of an internal affairs investigation, which is expected next week, said Marshal’s Capt. Donald O. Spears.

Orange County Marshal James C. Byham said Friday that his department knew before De La Mater was hired as a deputy marshal that he had been fired in 1974 from his job as a Costa Mesa police officer. But Byham said the reason for the termination, which he would not divulge, seemed to be a “one-time personal thing” and that “the complaint was . . . not of that extreme nature.”

The woman told Newport Beach police officers in November that she was raped July 23 after she and De La Mater met for a dinner date at a Santa Ana restaurant, police said. The pair later had drinks in Newport Beach, police said. The marshal raped the woman when the two parked later in the evening at a Newport Heights vacant lot, police said.

The 29-year-old woman said she tried to fight off De La Mater when he became overly aggressive but that he hit her and then dragged her out the car and raped her, said Robert Oakley, spokesman for the Newport Beach Police Department.

Authorities said the woman delayed notifying police and investigators with the district attorney’s office of the incident until November because she was concerned about De La Mater’s position as a deputy marshal.

A hearing on the case has been scheduled for Feb. 11 in South Orange County Municipal Court.

The marshal’s office suspended De La Mater’s status as a peace officer Dec. 3 when Newport Beach police notified them of the rape complaint, Capt. Spears said. De La Mater was removed from his position as a courtroom bailiff at Harbor Municipal Court in Newport Beach and reassigned to the information desk at the central county courthouse in Santa Ana until Thursday’s arraignment, Spears said.

Spears said his office launched an internal affairs investigation into the complaint Dec. 7 and that the results were forwarded to the county counsel’s office for review.

Before he became a deputy marshal, De La Mater was a police officer in Costa Mesa and Fullerton.

He served with the Fullerton Police Department from October, 1967, to May, 1972, before resigning for personal reasons, department officials said. Fullerton Police Chief Philip Goehring, who was with the department when De La Mater worked there, said he did not know what prompted De La Mater’s resignation.

In October, 1972, De La Mater joined the Costa Mesa Police Department and was fired two years later, city personnel officials said. Officials wouldn’t say why he was fired.

Times staff writers Kirk Jackson and Carlos Lozano contributed to this story.