2 Women Tell of Attacks by Defendant

Two women told prosecutors that homicide suspect David Alvarez repeatedly raped them when they were teenagers, and prosecutors hope the stories, though never reported to police, can be retold to jurors in the defendant’s upcoming murder trial.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Michael Katz submitted audiotape interviews with the women to Judge Rebecca Riley on Tuesday.

Katz hopes that after listening to the tapes, the judge will approve the testimony, which includes one woman’s memories of Alvarez allegedly holding her down, his thumb and forefinger around her throat.

“This evidence is admissible to prove the defendant has the disposition to commit a sexual offense,” Katz wrote in a brief filed with the court. “It is also admissible to prove the defendant intended to rape Kali Manley” and was capable of killing her.

But Alvarez’s defense attorney said the stories of rape from a half dozen years ago do not belong in court.

“I think that the alleged victims in this case are just not telling the truth,” said James Farley, adding the women have told “many different stories” to authorities.

Farley said he doubts the alleged sexual assaults occurred, because they were never reported to police.

Alvarez, 22, faces a first-degree murder charge in the strangulation of 14-year-old Manley. Authorities believe Alvarez choked the Oak View teenager to death during an attempted rape in the predawn hours of Dec. 20, 1998.

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Her naked body was found a week later stuffed into a drainage ditch in the rugged hills north of Ojai.

Prosecutors hope to show through the testimony of the two former girlfriends, who were not identified, that Alvarez has a history of pressuring teenage girls into sex, even using brute force if necessary.

According to court papers, Alvarez began dating one of the women, who was then 14, in 1994. They dated about eight months.

During that time, Alvarez “forced her to have sex on several occasions,” court papers said. “Sometimes the defendant would push her down, lie on top of her and hold her down by pushing her shoulders.”

The woman remembered struggling to get away, but her 87-pound frame was no match for Alvarez’s 140-pound stature, according to court records.

Eventually, the woman said she would “just lie there” and let Alvarez “do whatever he wanted,” prosecutors were told. Through it all, the woman said she would lie quietly and stare at the ceiling.

She finally stopped seeing Alvarez after he forced her to have anal sex with him, according to court records.

But Alvarez, unwilling to accept the breakup, later drove to the girl’s home to beg for forgiveness, according to court records. He persuaded the girl to sit in his truck to talk things over, but once inside the teenager noticed the truck had childproof locks on the doors. Escape, she told prosectors, was impossible.

The woman told prosecutors she was driven to the home of Alvarez’s parents in the mountains of Ojai. No one was home at the time, she said, adding that she remembered fearing for her life.

She “thought he was going to kill her,” court records state. She “knew there was nowhere to run because the house was in the mountains.”

Once inside the luxury ranch home, the woman told authorities Alvarez again sexually assaulted her.

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Through it all, the woman said, she kept thinking, “God, let him finish. When is this going to be over? I want to go home.”

Afterward, Alvarez drove the girl to a nearby bowling alley, she said. Barefoot and without a jacket, she was ordered out of his truck, she said. It was 3 a.m., she told prosectors.

“He told her he did not want to drive her home because she lived too far away,” court records said. Her home was another 15-minute drive.

After sitting alone and crying at the bowling alley for a time, the woman said, she called her brother to pick her up. But she never called the police, she said.

The second woman told authorities she also began dating Alvarez in 1994, when she was 14 and Alvarez was 17. The pair dated for three years, she said.

About six months into the relationship, the woman told prosecutors that Alvarez began forcing her into sex.

“When the defendant wanted to have sex and she didn’t, he would become real forceful,” court papers said. “He grabbed her hair and pulled on her. . . . He would use his hands and knees or whatever he could pin her down with.”

The woman reported that at other times Alvarez would bite her lips or her cheek. He also had a habit of holding her throat with his thumb and forefinger, court records stated, though the woman said she never felt like Alvarez was choking her.

The woman said she also never called police, but believes she “could have pressed charges on him a few times,” court papers said. She said she considers herself a rape victim.

“When you come down to it,” she told prosecutors, “if you’re saying no and someone’s making you do it anyway, that’s what it’s called.”

Judge Riley is expected to decide on Jan. 20 whether the women will be allowed to testify at Alvarez’s trial.