The trial for 22-year-old alleged rapist Seth Alan Roberts began Thursday with opening statements and testimony for sexually assaulting three women, two at knifepoint, in the greater San Diego area in the span of a month.
Roberts was 18 when he allegedly sexually three women late 2018 in separate attacks in Bonita, Pacific Beach, and Otay Mesa. He faces eight felony counts, including charges of forcible rape.
Roberts is accused of first raping his then-girlfriend at a Bonita campground on Oct. 18, 2018, after traveling from their home state of Oklahoma. According to Deputy District Attorney Judy Taschner, the victim took an Uber ride to Arizona after Roberts left the campsite, where she reported the alleged rape to police.
Prosecutors allege he met the second victim in Pacific Beach on Nov. 17, 2018, where he lured her into an alleyway he claimed led to his house and raped her at knifepoint.
The third alleged rape occurred about a week later with a young woman Roberts met at the Palomar street bus stop in Chula Vista on Nov.21, 2018. After exchanging phone numbers, he met up with the woman a few days later at her South Bay home on Nov. 25, where he is accused of raping her at knifepoint in her bedroom, according to prosecutors.
Roberts was arrested on Dec. 5. 2018 at his home in Chula Vista.
Roberts' defense attorney, Damian Lowe, told jurors “the evidence, in this case, will not support the charges'' and urged the jury panel not to be swayed by what he expected to be emotional testimony.
