A fingerprint on a teacup led to the arrest in last month’s attempted rape of a woman on a South Davis bike path, left there after the suspect walked the victim home after the attack, according to documents on file in Yolo Superior Court.
The revelation is contained in a prosecutor’s motion to increase bail for Jose Trinidad Perez-Meza, who faces felony assault, attempted forcible rape, robbery and kidnapping charges in connection with the Aug. 2 incident.
Perez-Meza, 36, currently remains free on a $150,000 bail bond posted a week after his Aug. 24 arrest. He appeared in Yolo Superior Court on Friday for a scheduled preliminary hearing, though the proceeding was delayed while Perez-Meza considers hiring private attorney, his court-appointed public defender said.
Meanwhile, the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office wants to increase Perez-Meza’s bail to $500,000, filing a bail-enhancement motion that noted the gravity of the current allegations along with the defendant’s criminal history — including two prior sexual-battery convictions in 2015 and 2018 for which he must register as a sex offender.
“I believe he is a public safety risk,” Deputy District Attorney David Robbins said during the live-streamed court hearing before Judge David Reed. “He went to a location out of his jurisdiction and attacked a stranger.”
But Perez-Meza’s public defender, Richard Van Zandt, noted that a supervising prosecutor initially requested the $150,000 bail figure, which his client funded with extensive help from his relatives. He also said Perez-Meza is married and has local ties that prevent him from being a flight risk.
“Mr. Perez-Meza and his family have shelled out a significant amount of bail. …It would be wrong on several levels to raise it now,” Van Zandt told Reed. “He’s fulfilled his bail conditions, and he’s here (in court) now.”
Reed declined to rule Friday, postponing the matter to Perez-Meza’s next court date of Sept. 24. That also may be when prosecutors air their evidence in the case, some of it detailed in the bail motion.
According to the document, Perez-Meza attacked the victim from behind at about 11:30 p.m. as she walked alone on the Putah Creek bike path near El Pescador Court.
“The defendant strangled her in a headlock and the victim then awoke on the ground. The defendant told her not to scream and that he had a gun. The defendant demanded the victim’s cell phone which he took so she could not call police,” the motion says.
It goes on to describe the rape attempt, which the woman convinced her assailant to halt. “The defendant then insisted that he walk her home,” tightly gripping her hand as they headed to her apartment.
“The defendant tried to convince the victim to sit outside alone with him on a chair in the apartment complex, but the victim told the defendant to come inside of her apartment,” where the victim apparently intended to ask her roommate in another language to call the police, the motion says.
“The defendant was given a cup of tea which he left a fingerprint on. The defendant lied about his name to the victim and lied about what he was doing in Davis,” it continues.
When Davis police arrested Perez-Meza several weeks later at his South Sacramento home, he denied being in Davis and committing an assault that night, despite the left-behind fingerprint and the discovery of the victim’s phone number in his phone, according to the document.
“The underlying facts of this case are much more aggravating than a common attempted rape,” Robbins concluded in the motion. “To deviate from bail and set such a serious case at $150,000 puts the public in danger and shocks the conscience.”
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene