Detailed notes from testimony at Zendejas preliminary hearing

Jane Doe, the slim Latino woman, roughly 40 years old, who was allegedly raped by Tony Zendejas, said she had been visiting Zendejas Mexican Restaurant fairly regularly from September or October 2007 until the time of the incident.

She testified Thursday that she would go to the restaurant about three times a month, usually on Thursdays.

On Jan. 25, 2008, the night of the alleged rape, she said she met her friend Janette, Janette's boyfriend Marco, and Marco's sister. They were celebrating Marco's sister's birthday, she said.

She said she had met Tony Zendejas at the restaurant several times in the past. She said he was there every Thursday, and they would talk sometimes. "A friend? No. We were friendly," she said. She described their relationship as a patron/owner relationship.

She said that she drank half a 12-ounce bottle of Miller Lite after she arrived at 8:15 p.m., and at about 9:15 Zendejas walked over to her table and gave her a red drink.

She said Zendejas told her the shot-glass-sized drink contained cranberry juice and Southern Comfort liquor. She said she drank the drink, and Zendejas brought her another one at about 10 p.m., which she finished drinking by 10:30 p.m., she said.

She said when she would visit the restaurant Zendejas would often bring her glasses of the same drink. But on the night of the alleged rape, she said the drink had a different effect than usual.

She recalled dancing with her friend Janette and feeling uncoordinated. She asked her friend whether she was dancing strangely, and her friend told her she wasn't.

She also recalled being in the bathroom with Janette, the two of them laughing loudly for no apparent reason.

Later she sat at a table and tried to attach a strap on her purse that had become undone.

"I was in a zombie state, a paralyzed state, because I was fiddling with my purse," she said.

At one point in the night, her friend Janette told her that Zendejas had her car keys. Janette told her she didn't want her driving home.

She said she asked Zendejas for her keys, and he shook his head "no."

She said she danced for Zendejas for one song.

One time when she returned to the table from the dance floor, there was a third red drink at her seat. She said she didn't want to drink it because of the odd effect the previous drinks were having on her.

"I don't want that. I want water," she said she told Zendjas.

"Drink your drink," Zendejas said in response, she said.

She said her last memory at the bar, at some point around midnight, was sitting at Zendejas's table and fiddling with her purse strap. She remembered she dropped her purse and everything fell out, and she went to the ground to recover the spilled items.

After that memory, she said she had only three brief memories before she woke up the next morning.

The first memory, she said, was sitting in a car she believes was Zendejas's. She knew it wasn't her car, she said, because her car had a cream-colored interior, and this car had black-leather interior. She was sitting in the passenger seat, and in the driver's seat she said she saw Zendejas.

She said her next memory was standing in a hotel lobby -later identified as the Red Roof Inn in San Dimas - at the front counter standing beside Zendejas.

"I'm numb to speak and move, then I'm out again," she said.

She said her final memory of the evening was in a well-lit hotel room. She said she remembered Zendejas's face moving closer to her's.

At about 5 p.m. that morning, she said she awoke suddenly from what felt like a deep sleep. She said she opened her eyes and saw white sheets - different from her dark-colored sheets at home. She said she was lying face-down on the bed with her legs spread, and her head facing to one side on the pillow.

She said she immediately knew it was a hotel room. She said she realized she was completely naked, alone in the room, and saw her car keys on an end table beside the bed. She said her clothes were scattered around the room.

"My first feeling was shock, and to get out," she said.

She said she felt pain in her rectum, and slight pain in her vaginal area, though not as bad.

She said she got dressed, collected her valuables and left the hotel room as quickly as possible.

As she left the second-floor room, she said she turned and looked at the room number - 231.

She said she walked back to her car in the parking lot of Zendejas Mexican Restaurant. She said she called her friend Janette in a panic, and talked to her for about one minute.

She also said that as she sat in the car she tried to call Zendejas's cell phone, but no one picked up. She said she left a message for him - and a second message later that day - but neither were returned.

She said she drove home, arriving by about 5:15 a.m., and she changed clothes and slept in her bed until about 7 a.m.

That afternoon she called the San Dimas sheriff's station and was subjected to a physician examination at Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center that afternoon as well.

All of the above information came out during direct examination from Deputy District Attorney Rouman Ebrahim, the prosecutor.

Under cross examination from defense attorney James Reiss, "Jane Doe" said she worked from home the day of the alleged attack until about 4:30 p.m. She said she didn't take any drugs, or any prescription drugs, or drink any alcohol all day before she drank at the restaurant.

She said her last meal before going to the restaurant was at about 6 p.m., and consisted of two taquitos and some homemade fideo soup.

At about 10:40 p.m. at the restaurant, as she was already feeling the effects of the drinks she believes included drugs, she said she exchanged text messages with a friend.

When she left at about midnight, she said she has no memory of saying goodbye to anyone. "I was not happy. I was a zombie," she said.

She said she was non-expressive, couldn't move, couldn't speak and couldn't hear normally.

"My hearing diminished and I faded away," she said.

The morning after the alleged rape, she said woke up and suspected she had been raped by Zendejas. "I was in denial that it was him," she said. "I just kept saying, 'No, no, no. He would not do this.'"

Under later questioning from Ebrahim, the woman said she returned to Zendejas Mexican Restaurant on April 17 with two undercover female sheriff's deputies. The women were secretly recording their conversations that night.

She said Zendejas was there on April 17, and she spoke to him in an attempt to get him to speak about the alleged rape.

"Tell me about that night, because I don't remember," she said she told Zendejas.

"I knocked you out," she said Zendejas told her. "I took that booty."

She said Zendejas said that several times.

The woman finished testifying at about 10:30 a.m. Thursday, and the court took a recess until about 10:45. When the court was back in session, Zendejas's attorneys told Judge Charles Horan they had five witnesses waiting in the hallway who could speak about the night of the alleged incident.

James Reiss, the attorney, told the judge the witnesses could testify that Jane Doe appeared to be in a condition to consent to sex acts. He also said the witnesses could say that "she was pursuing Mr. Zendejas and has in the past."

"At no time was she in a zombie-like state," Weiss said.

The judge ruled that the witnesses could not testify at the preliminary hearing because they could provide only circumstantial evidence, not direct evidence about the alleged crimes that took place at the Red Roof Inn.

Horan called the information described by Weiss "perfect jury issues" to be used at a potential trial.

At 11:17 a.m., the medical examiner, Malinda Wheeler, was called to the witness stand by the prosecution.

She said she was the owner of Forensic Nurse Specialists, which performs forensic examinations of rape victims for local police agencies. She said she has been a registered nurse for 27 years, specializing in sexual assault examinations for the past 15 years.

She said she personally had performed about 500 examinations, and had assisted others on an additional 300 to 400 exams.

She said one of the tissue tears in the alleged victim's anal area was significant, and may have required surgery if a blood clot hadn't formed.

She said there was another minor tear in the alleged victim's anal area, and other small tears to the outside of her vaginal area.

She said the injuries appeared to have occurred within the past 48 hours of the examination. The examination was taken at about 4 or 5 p.m. on Jan. 26. She conceded under cross examination from the defense attorney that the injury could have been caused prior to her arrival at Zendejas Mexican Restaurant.

Wheeler also took notes during the examination about the alleged victim's alcohol consumption. Jane Doe told the examiner that she had two beers the night of the attack - not half a beer as she testified Thursday - and had also consumed a third red drink at about 12:30 a.m. Jan. 26, right before she left the restaurant.

After the examiner's testimony, the defense attorneys raised the issue of the toxicology tests performed on blood and urine samples that were drawn from the victim the evening after the alleged attack.

The tests came back negative for common date-rape drugs and illegal drugs such as cocaine, amphetamines, marijuana and other drugs.

Judge Horan then considered the charges against Zendejas. He threw out the great-bodily-injury enhancements to the two felony charges related to the alleged vaginal rape, but kept the two enhancements for the sodomy charges.

"People don't usually tear during consensual sex, or else there would be little of it practiced," he said.

He also said he felt the drug test was "not determinative." He said he wasn't personally familiar with the amount of time it would take for typical date-rape drugs to leave a person's system.

He set a new arraignment in the case for Nov. 6 in Pomona Superior Court Dept. N, on the fifth floor.

After the hearing, Zendejas did not respond to a request for comment, but his defense attorneys were willing to comment.

Reiss said "the standard for the preliminary hearing is so low" that they didn't realistically expect the charges against his client to be dismissed.

He said things such as a misidentification of an accused criminal, or DNA evidence that excludes an accused criminal from involvement in a crime, can lead to a dismissal of criminal charges at the preliminary-hearing level.

He did say the testimony from the alleged victim would be helpful to the defense's case "because now she's pinned down" to a specific timeline for the events of the night in question.

He also said that if the alleged victim's drink had been spiked - either the 9:15 p.m. drink or the 10 p.m. drink - she would have been "out cold" long before her memory of the evening began fading at about 11:30 p.m.

He also said that Zendejas will testify if his case reaches trial, and will say the incident was "a night of consensual sex without complaint."

He also said the defense intends to call to the witness stand an expert on rape victims who will say the behavior of the alleged victim when she returned to the restaurant on April 17 was unusual for a rape victim.

The alleged victim voluntarily danced with Zendejas during the visit, and also spoke to him, apparently in an effort to get him to speak about the alleged crimes, Reiss said. The behavior is not consistent with a rape victim, Reiss said.

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