Officers’ testimony at odds in rape case
A lead investigator in a series of sexual assaults in San Francisco said Tuesday he wanted to see if the suspect in the “Rideshare Rapist” case was intoxicated when officers pulled him over and made him blow into an alcohol screening test — from which they collected his DNA without a warrant.
Inspector Mark Lee’s testimony contradicted three officers who testified before him in a hearing in San Francisco Superior Court. The officers said the only reason they gave Orlando Vilchez Lazo the alcohol test in the early morning hours of July 7, 2018, was to collect his saliva from two mouthpieces to get a sample of his DNA.
One officer said that Lee told him to lie to Vilchez Lazo, 38, during the traffic stop. Another
officer said he raised the question at the scene about whether they were violating the suspect’s Fourth Amendment rights against illegal searches but was rebuffed by his superior officer.
Lee admitted he wanted a sample of the driver’s genetic material, but said the pretext for the stop was also to see if Vilchez Lazo was intoxicated. Lee said he saw the suspect driving erratically around nightclubs in the South of Market neighborhood just before the other officers arrived on scene for the 2:40 a.m. stop.
The discrepancy between his account of the events that night and the other officers’ accounts was simply a miscommunication, Lee said.
“There’s a gap in experience in the department,” he said. “Knowing that and recognizing that, I should have been more clear in directing what I wanted.”
The question about whether police were conducting a legitimate DUI investigation or whether they cooked up a bogus reason to take a suspect’s DNA without a warrant may be a crucial point as a judge decides if the search was illegal.
Police eventually connected the DNA sample to four unsolved kidnappings and rapes and arrested Vilchez Lazo in a case that made headlines around the country and prompted safety campaigns about the potential dangers of appbased ridehailing services.
Vilchez Lazo worked for Lyft but was not using the platform when he lured his victims into his car, police said. Lyft later terminated him and said it beefed up its background check process after authorities revealed Vilchez Lazo was in the country illegally from Peru.
His attorney, Deputy Public Defender Sandy Feinland, has argued that police illegally obtained the DNA during a “fishing expedition” and the evidence from the search should be tossed out along with any evidence police later obtained in their investigation.
But Assistant District Attorney Lailah Morris argued the stop was legitimate because the two mouthpieces that police collected from the alcohol screening device should be considered discarded material.
But even if Judge Newton Lam rules that the search was illegal, Morris said the evidence shouldn’t be suppressed because police were following several leads that would have eventually led to Vilchez Lazo.
The controversial stop happened as Lee and other officers were conducting a surveillance operation around the South of Market nightclubs, hoping to catch the yettobe identified rapist.
Investigators said they spotted a suspicious Honda in the area, lining up with other drivers for Lyft and Uber but not picking up fares. Lee, who was working undercover, said he put out a call for a marked patrol car to pull the driver over after watching him pull a Uturn, swerve in lanes and other erratic driving behavior.
Officers Jose Rosales Renteria and Nicole Hicks stopped Vilchez Lazo’s Honda around Fourth and Howard streets and were met by Lee and other plainclothes investigators. Rosales Renteria testified on Monday that he had no reason to believe Vilchez Lazo was drunk but Lee told him to get his DNA.
The officer said Lee told him to tell Vilchez Lazo that he pulled him over because he saw him swerving. Lee denied telling the officer to lie.
Officer Antonio Aguilar later arrived at the scene with an alcohol screening device and testified that he “was directed to collect a DNA sample” from Vilchez Lazo. Aguilar had Vilchez Lazo blow into the device multiple times and collected two mouthpieces in evidence envelopes with Lee.
The officers said they never gave Vilchez Lazo a field sobriety test, and didn’t read him a required legal admonition, advising him he had a right to refuse the breath test.
Aguilar’s partner, Officer Colby Smets, said he raised concerns about possible constitutional violations but said Lee told him that drivers must consent to an alcohol screening test.
“I was curious as to whether there was a Fourth Amendment issue — but it is not my place to question my superior officers,” Smets testified.
Vilchez Lazo blew a 0.0% blood alcohol level and was told he could leave. Five days later, police arrested him after his DNA matched the suspect’s in the four rapes.