Palm Desert man to stand trial on rape allegations

On Wednesday afternoon, a 20-year-old Palm Desert man was ordered to stand trial for allegedly raping an intoxicated woman after she left a party in June.

A judge at the Larson Justice Center ruled that there was enough evidence for Alexis Haro to proceed to trial on one count each of rape of an unconscious victim, assault with intent to rape and sodomy of an intoxicated victim.

He has pleaded not guilty and is free on $75,000 bail.

The alleged victim came forward on June 22, 2013, to report that she was
attacked the night before at an apartment complex in the 72600 block of Fred Waring Drive in Palm Desert. She told Riverside County sheriff’s investigators that she left a party at about 11 p.m. and alleged she was grabbed by Haro while walking to meet her boyfriend.

Though she tried to fight him off, Haro allegedly pulled her into a bathroom in a pool area, sheriff’s Investigator Sean Freeman wrote in a declaration in support of an arrest warrant.

Haro allegedly forced the woman onto the bathroom floor and raped her
for about 10 minutes. A friend of Haro’s, who had been at the party, came into the bathroom, got into a scuffle with him and took the woman to his apartment, according to the declaration.

The man said the woman was “very intoxicated” and that he and Haro found her unconscious in the pool bathroom and cleaned her up, according to the declaration.

“(He) stated that Haro made comments indicating that he wanted to have
sex with (her),” Freeman wrote.

Haro’s friend told investigators he found Haro “lying on top of (the
woman) and appeared to be having sex with her … Haro jumped up and zipped up his pants. Haro told (the man), `She wouldn’t let me do anything. Don’t accuse me of something I didn’t do,’ ” the declaration states.

Haro told authorities he’d spoken to the woman during the party and later found her in a bathroom, intoxicated but awake, according to Freeman.

Haro said he left briefly to call his girlfriend. When he returned, the woman “pulled at his clothes and touched him seductively,” leading him to believe that she “wanted to have sex,” but he was unable to perform, the declaration says.

A sexual assault exam at Eisenhower Medical Center determined that the
woman had injuries consistent with the alleged attack, and authorities found a shirt in Haro’s closet matching the description of the shirt he wore that night, according to Freeman.