2 Women Tell Hearing of Advances by Officer

Two young women said Thursday that they were frightened when a San Diego police officer pulled them to the side of the road in separate incidents, then began making sexual advances toward them in the summer of 1988--a time of heightened public awareness of the Craig Peyer case.

Their stories were told during a hearing before the city Civil Service Commission, which is considering Charles Demers’ request that his termination be overturned and that he be reinstated to the San Diego Police Department.

As part of the appeal, his attorney, Everett Bobbitt, indicated to the commission that the women exaggerated the events of the two traffic stops, particularly since the first incident occurred just two weeks after Peyer, a California Highway Patrol officer, was found guilty of murdering a young woman he forced off the road.

He noted that both women had been drinking and driving, and he suggested that they may have embellished their stories of Demers’ conduct to keep from getting in trouble with their parents.

“There were a number of people complaining about being stopped by police,” Bobbitt said. “During that period of time, there were a lot of women who had an over-heightened sense of awareness, and there was a heightened paranoia in the community.”

Demers was fired in March, after working as a police officer in San Diego for two years and in Rhode Island for seven years.

The San Diego County district attorney’s office declined to file criminal charges against Demers, 32, in connection with the incidents. John Vanderslice, a deputy city attorney who is asking the commission to uphold the termination, said the district attorney decided there was not enough evidence to sustain a guilty verdict of criminal wrongdoing.

Lisa Marlaire, 24, an aerobics instructor, testified that she and a friend were driving home from a nightclub in July, 1988, when Demers pulled them over. After giving her a sobriety test, she said, he threatened to take her to the County Jail at Las Colinas.

She said he also asked whether she was wearing underwear and offered her a proposition.

“He came back to the car and squatted down in front of me on the curb,” she said. “He was fairly close in front of me. He said to me, ‘I’m going to let you go, but I want you do one thing for me.’ ”

She said he then asked her to partially disrobe.

“I couldn’t believe it,” she added. “But I thought he was very serious, and that I had to do that to get out of going to Las Colinas.”

She said he later relented and allowed her to leave.

In the second incident, which occurred a month later, Katherine Sparduto, 19, a student at San Diego State University, testified that she was driving home from a late-night party when Demers pulled her over. She said he gave her a sobriety test, threatened her with jail, and then said he would release her.

But, she said, he also told her, “since you’ve been partying with your friends all night, would you mind partying with me for a while?”

“He motioned to the shrubbery over there,” she said. “I said no. I said I wanted to go home. I think I started crying.”

He continued to talk to her, she said. “He asked me if I was embarrassed because I’d never been with a man before,” she said. “Then I started crying a lot more. I covered my face with my hands. He said if I stayed with him another five minutes, it would be the best five minutes I ever had.”

She said he allowed her to leave, then pulled her over several blocks down the road. She said he asked her to get into his car, but she refused and drove home.

In other testimony, Lt. John L. Madigan said he investigated the complaints from the two women and learned that Demers had not included the two traffic stops in his daily police log.

Under cross-examination, Madigan said that Demers’ supervisors did not require that all traffic stops be logged.

The women, also under cross-examination, acknowledged that they had been somewhat untruthful about some events connected with the two traffic stops. They also said that Demers never physically tried to harm them, and that they did not believe they were in real danger of being raped.

The hearing will continue Tuesday.