Airport Courthouse, Sexual Battery (243.4), Uber Driver

In 2017, our client, then age 21, was an Uber driver.  He served the Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and Westchester areas, often transporting clients from LAX to hotels and vice versa.  He also transported clients from hotels to meetings in the same areas.

One evening in 2017, he picked up a late-twenties lady from a restaurant and was asked to drive her back to her hotel in Beverly Hills.  As was not uncommon, the woman had drunk a few too many drinks that evening and was tipsy in our client’s car.  On the way back to her hotel, she fell asleep in the backseat of our client’s car.

This happened before in our client’s employment as an Uber driver.  Our client would often turn up the radio volume to wake up the passenger, or he would tap the brakes suddenly to wake up the passenger once he arrived at the destination.

On this particular evening, nothing seemed to work to awaken the passenger.  The client rolled down the windows and drove around the block, hoping the wind from the open windows would awaken the passenger.  He then closed the windows up and turned up the heat “full blast” in the car.  This also did not work.

Finally, he decided to touch the client’s knee and try to shake her awake.  This worked and the client woke up, paid him and then walked into her hotel.

Before our client could leave the hotel, the woman walked back to our client’s car and got in.  Our client was surprised and turned around to look at her.  She smiled at him, suggesting (to our client) that he should get in the backseat with her.

The client did so and the client did not protest or resist.  Our client then started to touch her and tried to kiss her.  The woman then got out of the Uber and walked into the hotel.

Our client was puzzled by this and drove off. 

Little did our client know, but the woman then reported her experience to the Beverly Hills police, who prepared a report and sent it to the Airport District Attorney’s office.  The District Attorney’s Office then filed a misdemeanor criminal complaint against our client in 2018, alleging a violation of Penal Code § 243.4(a)(1).

Police drove to our client’s home in Visalia, 400 miles north, to try to interview our client and to arrest him, but our client was not home at the time.  Police also had the victim text our client to try to get our client to apologize and admit he was wrong, which our client did, but in an ambiguous way.

Our client then otherwise lived his life, never aware of a bench warrant being issued when he failed to appear in court for the arraignment, which he was never notified of.

Finally, in 2023, his employer notified him of the bench warrant, revealed in a routine background check of him.  The employer told our client he would be asked to leave if he did not “clear up the warrant.” 

The client then called Greg Hill & Associates and discussed the warrant and what he suspected the case was about.  The client described his job as an Uber driver and the incident with the female passenger.

Greg then went to court and researched the case, finding that the case indeed was about this female passenger.

Greg explained that while the charge was a misdemeanor, a conviction for this offense required registration as a sex offender for ten years under the new tier system under Penal Code 290.5 (codifying Senate Bill 384).  Greg then explained how in prior cases he had handled, he was able to resolve the case instead as false imprisonment (Penal Code § 236) or simple battery (Penal Code § 242).  Greg further explained that the client would be wise to enroll proactively in a sexual compulsiveness class or sexual compulsiveness counseling.

As to the delay in prosecution of the case, Greg explained that since the police attempted to contact the client several times to move forward with the case, and the client evaded them or avoided them, a Motion to Dismiss based on a Speedy Trial violation (Sixth Amendment), based on the delay in prosecution would most likely be denied.  A judge would not want to “reward” our client for “playing hide and go seek” with police.

The client then retained Greg Hill & Associates and Greg appeared in the Airport Courthouse to recall the bench warrant.  Greg was familiar with the district attorney assigned to the case and explained how our client wanted to resolve the case without having to register as a sex offender.

Over the next several months, our office continued negotiating, even having a Static 99R report prepared for our client to persuade the prosecutor that our client did not pose a risk of re-offending if allowed to plead to a non-registrable offense.

The client, meanwhile, underwent months of counseling with a sex therapist closer to his home in Northern California.

Despite our efforts, the prosecution refused to resolve the case without having our client register as a sex offender.  Apparently, the victim was extremely angry at our client and underwent therapy costing over $10,000 and took a leave of absence from work, losing several months of income.  She was adamant that our client would serve time in custody for the crime.

Ultimately, our client was offered a no jail offer and one year of informal, or summary, probation, which he accepted reluctantly, knowing that an emotional witness at trial, denying that she consented to the touching (over clothes, no less) and saying she was impaired by alcohol at that time, would be no match for our client.  The risk of losing was time in custody, up to one year, as well as registration.