Deputy Is Accused of Raping Suspect

An Orange County sheriff’s deputy was charged Wednesday with raping a suspect in a case he had been investigating, a spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department said.

Investigator Robert Minty, 37, is accused of raping a 20-year-old woman from Healdsburg, Calif., March 24 at a Midway City motel, Sheriff’s Lt. Richard J. Olson said.

The woman was a suspect in a case involving solicitation of magazine subscriptions without a license and theft of money from a magazine customer, Olson said. After several telephone conversations with Minty, who had been assigned to the investigation, the woman flew from her home to Los Angeles to appear in court for her case, Olson said.

Minty picked the woman up at Los Angeles International Airport, drove her in his own car to a Beach Boulevard motel room that he had rented that day, and they “spent the evening together,” Olson said.

The next morning, Minty drove the woman to West Municipal Court in Westminster, where she pleaded guilty and paid a fine for a misdemeanor charge in connection with the magazine sales, Olson said. “She went to lunch with Minty, and he dropped her off at South Coast Plaza, promising to return after work and drive her to (Los Angeles International Airport) for her return flight home,” Olson said. “However, the victim felt she had been left stranded and called the rape crisis center and said she had been raped, naming Minty as the suspect.”

Sheriff’s Department investigators met with the woman and a counselor at the rape crisis center “and worked throughout the night gathering evidence and conducting interviews,” Olson said.

When Minty arrived for work the next morning, he was placed on paid administrative leave until the case is resolved, Olson said.

The Orange County district attorney’s office filed a criminal complaint Wednesday charging Minty with “rape under color of authority,” he said.

Olson said Minty, who is married and has one child, was to have been arraigned in West Municipal Court Wednesday. But Minty’s attorney and the deputy district attorney handling the case could not be reached for comment.