Rape Suspect to Face His Alleged Victims

A convicted sex offender, once cleared of rape when a judge ruled that all sex with a prostitute is legal, sexually assaulted four women he met over the Internet, a prosecutor said Thursday.

Daniel Zabuski, 41, of Canoga Park is on trial in Pasadena on 11 felony counts, ranging from rape and attempted sodomy to assault, in attacks on four women in Burbank and Canoga Park in October 1999 and March 2000. Most of the counts are punishable by up to eight years in state prison.

Zabuski served nine years in prison for sexually assaulting two teenage girls in 1990 while posing as a talent scout. He was released in September 1999.

In the current case, he was arrested in April 2000 on suspicion of raping a Burbank woman. Three other women then filed criminal complaints alleging he had also assaulted them, authorities said.

Zabuski gained notoriety in 1986 when a Pasadena judge threw out charges that he raped a prostitute, calling it “a breach of contract between a whore and a trick.”

At the time, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Gilbert C. Alston said in an interview that “a woman who goes out on the street and makes a whore out of herself . . . steps outside the protection of the law.” His remarks drew sharp criticism from feminists and legal commentators, but Alston, who retired from the bench in 1991, was not disciplined.

On Thursday, Deputy Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Amy Suehiro told jurors in her opening statement that all four alleged victims will testify.

Defense Statement Scheduled for Today

Defense lawyer James Barnes is expected to argue that his client had consensual sex with each woman. He is scheduled to give his opening statement today.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Terry Smerling has issued a gag order forbidding the attorneys, police and witnesses from talking about the case. The trial is expected to last at least four weeks.

According to Suehiro’s opening statement, the four women all met Zabuski in chat rooms on the Internet, and he told at least one of them that he was an L.A. Dodger.

One of the women invited Zabuski to her room at the Quality Inn in Burbank on March 10, 2000. It was their first face-to-face meeting. There, Zabuski raped and sodomized her and forced her to perform oral sex, Suehiro said. He also hit the woman and forced her into the bathtub, where he urinated on her, the prosecutor said.

“She was threatened and she was hit by the defendant. She was in fear of him,” Suehiro said.

Five days later, Zabuski went to the home of a Canoga Park woman, also for their first personal encounter. She was similarly assaulted, Suehiro said.

Five days after that, another of the alleged victims went to Zabuski’s apartment, where he allegedly tried to sodomize her against her will.

The two had met in a chat room for people interested in dominant and submissive lifestyles, Suehiro said. The woman willingly performed oral sex but did not consent to sodomy, Suehiro said.

Zabuski set up a date with the fourth alleged victim for Oct. 1, 1999, at his Canoga Park home.

When she arrived, Zabuski immediately “socked her in the stomach for being late,” then sexually attacked her, Suehiro said.

Two earlier victims also are expected to testify.

The first woman met Zabuski in 1979 when he was a cadet with the San Gabriel Police Department, working at the jail, and she had been arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, Suehiro said.

Zabuski allegedly offered the woman an early release from jail in exchange for sex in the lockup. She complied, the prosecutor said, but was not released until the next day.

“She will say she was tricked,” Suehiro said.

Zabuski was convicted in that case of bribery for demanding sexual favors from inmates while working as a jailer.

The other woman expected to testify got a call in 1990 from Zabuski, posing as a casting director for a major studio, when she was 18, Suehiro said. He had seen her name on a list of high school graduates in a local newspaper.

Teen Was Molested in Parking Garage

They met at a doughnut shop in South Pasadena and drove in his car to the top of a parking garage in Pasadena, Suehiro said.

According to the prosecutor, Zabuski told the young woman that because she didn’t belong to a union, she would have to star in an X-rated movie. He then forced her to perform oral sex. She was one of the victims in his 1991 conviction.

Zabuski was also convicted in 1983 of molesting a girl.