Last Updated on June 27, 2017 by CCAR Staff
An Uber driver was charged Tuesday with raping a female passenger in a North Hollywood motel while she was unconscious, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday.
Alaric Spence, 46, was charged on three felony counts: kidnapping to commit rape, rape of an unconscious person and rape by use of drugs, according to a statement from the D.A.’s office.
Sarah Ardalani, spokesperson for the District Attorney’s Office, said the charge of “rape by use of drugs” is more commonly known as rape of an intoxicated person.
In making this charge, the District Attorney’s filing says Spence “did unlawfully have and accomplish an act of sexual intercourse with a person … not his/her spouse, where said person was prevented from resisting by an intoxicating, anesthetic and controlled substance, and this condition was known, and reasonably should have been known by the defendant.”
Spence was scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday in Department 30 of the Foltz Criminal Justice Center, with prosecutors asking that bail be set at $1.1 million.
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Spence is accused of picking up the 24-year-old woman in downtown L.A. and driving her to North Hollywood, where he allegedly raped her, according to prosecutors.
The woman was intoxicated and unconscious when she was sexually assaulted, prosecutors allege, adding that when the woman woke up, she told police what happened.
Spence was arrested later. If convicted, he faces 15 years to life in prison.
