Taxi driver accused of rape not charged

Marisa O’Neil

A Cathedral City taxi driver accused of sexually assaulting a woman

he’d picked up in Costa Mesa was scheduled to be released from police

custody Thursday.

Costa Mesa Police arrested 42-year-old Rodney Cornell Carter early

Tuesday morning on suspicion of rape while the victim was

intoxicated. He was being held on $100,000 bail at the Orange County

Jail but scheduled for release because prosecutors did not file

charges, Orange County Dist. Atty. spokesman Mark Macaulay said.

Criminal defendants must be arraigned within 48 hours of an

arrest. If prosecutors can’t file charges in a timely manner, the

accused must be released, police said.

By late Thursday, Carter had not been released, according to the

Orange County Sheriff’s Department website.

The case is still under investigation.

“Prosecutors only file charges when they know, beyond a reasonable

doubt, they can prove a case,” Macaulay said. “We’re not just going

to let it walk.”

Carter is due in court today on an unrelated charge, Macaulay

said. He is accused of resisting a police officer in Laguna Beach

after he was stopped for crossing a double-yellow line in his cab, he

said.

The woman, a 36-year-old Placentia resident, was out drinking with

friends at Goat Hill Tavern on Newport Boulevard Monday night,

according to police. Friends who thought she’d drunk too much put her

in a cab and told another set of friends in a Wallace Avenue home to

expect her.

Friends at the home later found the woman with her pants down

lying in the back of the taxi and unable to remember what had

happened, police said.

Some sort of sexual contact between the driver and the woman took

place, Costa Mesa Police Det. Ed Everett said.

“Our belief is, based on her intoxicated state, she was unable to

consent,” he said.

Police are still investigating the case, he said.

Carter had been employed at 1-800-4-MY-TAXI for about two months,

a manager there said. It appeared that he had been living in local

motels while working there.

Police are asking any other possible victims to call Everett at

(714) 754-5360.