A 43-year-old Walnut Creek teacher has been charged with the rape, unlawful sexual intercourse, and assault of a student, and it does not help his case that he admitted to these things on a phone call that police had secretly wiretapped.

Several East Bay media outlets had the news in early May when 43-year-old Contra Costa School of Performing Arts teacher Gerard Flaherty was arrested on charges that he’d raped an underaged student. The victim’s age was not released because she is a minor, but that Walnut Creek charter school is a grade 6-12 school, so the victim likely falls into that age range.

What those reports did not include is some new information that’s just coming to light today. The Bay Area News Group reports that Flaherty admitted to the crime in a secretly wiretapped phone call. The victim apparently called Flaherty, with police secretly listening in, and claimed that she was pregnant. She did not disclose how she got pregnant on the call, but Flaherty certainly had a guilty reaction when the student said that she intended to have the baby.

“I would go to jail if that happened,” Flaherty allegedly said in that April 30 call, according to the News Group. “They, they, they’ll do a DNA test … I just, it would, it would ruin so many lives.” He also allegedly insisted on an abortion, and told the student “Can we get you scheduled with an appointment?”

Flaherty’s arrest came later that day. The News Group is also now reporting that the same student said Flaherty had paid her to get a Plan B pill six weeks earlier and that he paid for it, with the student providing proof of a $400 money transfer.

Walnut Creek police searches of Flaherty’s office at the school allegedly turned up beer bottles and BuzzBallz bottles. The News Group adds that in that office, “On a dry erase board someone wrote ‘Free K Relly,’ an apparent anagram of R Kelly, the famed R&B singer serving prison time for child sex trafficking and producing child pornography.  

This would seem a massive embarrassment for the Contra Costa School of Performing Arts, but that’s probably not how things will work out in the long run. The school already closed permanently at the end of this past school year because of declining enrollment.

Related: Former Napa and Benicia Elementary School Teacher Faces Trial on Child Molestation Charges [SFist]

Image via Loopnet

The 47-year-old CEO of a Silicon Valley investment firm was arrested in a luxury condo neighborhood of SoMa on Saturday morning, after a woman said she was forcibly raped, assaulted, and had to be hospitalized.

The reports of a San Francisco rape arrest Saturday Morning on the 100 block of Fremont Street are notable, because of who was arrested on the charge. The Chronicle reports that a prominent Silicon Valley investor and CEO was arrested for assault, rape, and other charges. The now-jailed suspect is 47-year-old Andrei Karkar, whose father was the founder of the prominent 1960s and 70s electronics hardware firm Karkar Electronics, and whose mother Natalia Makarova is a Tony-winning Russian ballerina described in 1978 by the New York Times as “one of the world's great ballerinas.”  

The 100 block of Fremont Street is a block from Salesforce Tower, and right next to Salesforce Park. The Chronicle reports that “Property records indicate that Karkar owns a condo inside 181 Fremont St.” The British tabloid Daily Mail says Karkar was “detained at his nearly $7 million condo in San Francisco on Saturday,” and adds Saturday was “the same day as his 47th birthday.”

Karkar is the CEO of the family investment firm, ERAS Holdings.

Officers responded to reports of a sexual assault on that block at 9 am Saturday morning.

The victim was taken to the hospital and treated, SFPD identified Karkar as the suspect and arrested him. He was booked into County Jail at 11 pm Saturday night, on charges of assault with a deadly weapon, rape by force, injuring a wireless communication device, first-degree robbery, and false imprisonment.

Karkar is now the CEO of a family investment firm, and according to his bio with that firm, “he leads a team that invests globally in public and private markets focusing on disruptive innovation across industries.” That bio adds that he is “active in various think tanks and in supporting the arts, sciences, environment and philanthropy.”

Karkar’s attorney Eric Safire did not comment to the Chronicle or the Daily Mail, but noted that the SF District Attorney has not yet filed any charges

SF County Jail records show Karkar is still detained there as of Tuesday morning, and his next court appearance is not yet scheduled.

Related: TechCrunch Writer Details Sexual Harassment Experience With SF-Based Venture Capitalist [SFist]

Image: 181 Fremont

As sexual assault accusations pile up against the now-jailed Sean “Diddy” Combs, the newest of these comes from a woman who says Combs raped her in Orinda in March 2018.

Note: This post contains graphic, detailed accusations of sexual assault and rape.

Now-disgraced and jailed pop icon Sean “Diddy” Combs is in federal custody on sex trafficking and a host of other charges, and there are nearly two dozen additional civil lawsuits against Combs and his associates from victims of his myriad alleged assaults. And the latest of these lawsuits, filed Monday in SF’s District Court for the Northern District of California, stems from an alleged 2018 gang rape that took place in the Contra Costa suburb of Orinda, according to KTVU.

KTVU has posted the civil lawsuit online, and it is very difficult to read. The lawsuit was first reported by TMZ, with a perhaps ill-advised headline.

But the victim has chosen to make her name public. The lawsuit says Ashley Parham met Shane Pearce of Orinda at a bar in February 2018. Pearce apparently knew Combs, and started Facetiming with him that evening. Parham was unimpressed, saying out loud that Combs had "something to do with the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur."  

Combs was not happy about this. The lawsuit says that when Parham and Pearce were at Pearce’s Orinda home the night of March 23, 2018, Combs stormed in with an entourage and “entered the home in a ‘ready to party’ manner.” Combs allegedly threatened violence against Parham for the Tupac remark, and told her he could ship her "anywhere in the world and she would never see her family or anyone else she knew ever again."

At that point, per the suit, Combs and Pearce forcibly removed Parham’s clothes, and Combs sprayed her with his famed baby oil. His bodyguard Kristina Khorram allegedly attempted to insert an IUD into Parham’s vagina.

The suit says that Combs grabbed a TV remote and "violently inserted it" into Parham. After that, the suit says “Diddy then instructed defendant Shane to put a pillow over [Parham’s] head because he didn’t want to see her face or hear her cries and instructed Defendant Shane to anally rape her.” Combs allegedly did the same, and recorded parts of the incident.

While Parham says she had been drugged, she recovered to the point of being able to gather her clothes and walk, and confronted Combs and the entourage outside with a knife. Combs insisted the sex was consensual and accused Parham of being a sex worker. The argument escalated to where a neighbor checked in on the ruckus. Combs allegedly pulled a gun, and Parham says she ran to a neighbor’s house where that neighbor called the police.

A Contra Costa County sheriff's deputy arrived, though Parham says in the suit that “The Sheriff did not offer to take Plaintiff home, nor did he call for emergency services including an ambulance, nor any offer to take Plaintiff to the hospital, nor any offer to help Plaintiff recover her clothes or effects from Defendant Shane’s residence.”

According to a NewsNation report on KRON4, Parham says she also made statements to the Walnut Creek and Orinda police departments, but did not name Combs, fearing she would not be believed.  

Combs remains in federal custody on criminal charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution. He’s pleaded not guilty. There are no criminal charges filed in relation to the Orinda incident.

Related: Elon Musk’s Secret List of Twitter Buyout Investors Made Public; It Includes Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs [SFist]

Image: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - OCTOBER 25: Sean "Diddy" Combs attends the REVOLT X AT&T 3-Day Summit In Los Angeles - Day 1 at Magic Box on October 25, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for REVOLT)

The ruthless killing of 13-year-old Sarah Ann Geer was a case that had gone cold for 42 years, but Cloverdale police used genetic tests to finally determine and arrest a 62-year-old suspect.

In the Sonoma County city of Cloverdale, some 85 miles north of San Francisco, there was a 1982 murder case of a teenager that had gone cold. Then-13-year-old Sarah Ann Geer was found dead in an alley, haveing been raped, strangled, and killed. The Cloverdale Police Department had a number of suspects, but no leads panned out, and the case went cold for four decades.

But that department reopened the case in 2021. They still had the decades-old semen samples to work with, and more modern “DNA genetic genealogy technology” at their disposal. And with that, SFGate reports the Cloverdale PD arrested 62-year-old James Unick of Willows, California on Monday, and charged him with Geer’s murder.

"Today represents a bittersweet victory for justice,” Cloverdale Police Chief Chris Parker said in  a statement. “While nothing can undo the pain inflicted upon the Geer family and our community, we can finally offer some solace in knowing that the perpetrator will be held accountable. This arrest is a testament to the dedication of our law enforcement agencies and the unwavering resolve of Cloverdale's citizens."

Per SFGate, Unick had actually been in police custody on an unrelated matter two years after Geer’s killing. In 1985, when he lived in Cloverdale and was 23 years old, he was involved in a hit-and-run, and led police on a high-speed chase before turning himself in and being arrested. It is not clear whether records obtained in that incident helped facilitate this arrest.

Regardless, Unick is now being held without bail Sonoma County Jail on charges of murder, rape, kidnapping, and lewd and lascivious acts with a minor under 14 by force. His future court appearances have not been announced.

Related: DNA Evidence Reopens 1987 Cold Case of Abused and Murdered Solano County Boy, New Suspect Arrested [SFist]

Image: Cloverdale Police Department via Facebook

A fugitive who had been on trial for sexual assault almost 17 years ago in Massachusetts was recently apprehended by US Marshals in the East Bay, where he had apparently been staying for some time.

Dubbed the "Bad Breath Rapist" during the investigation into the assault case two decades ago, 55-year-old Tuen Kit "Dickie" Lee was taken into custody Tuesday in Diablo, California — a small, fairly wealthy unincorporated area near Danville. The US Marshals Service Pacific Southwest Regional Fugitive Task Force conducted the arrest with the help of the Marshals Service Massachusetts Fugitive Task Force, the Massachusetts State Police, and the Quincy (Mass.) Police Department.

The Danville Police Department also helped with the investigation, which determined that Lee had been staying in the area — though the details of this, or who might have been staying with, have not been made public.

Lee was originally on trial in 2007 for the kidnapping and rape of a young woman in 2005. The victim accused Lee of breaking into her Quincy, Mass. home while she slept, zip-tying her to her bed, and assaulting her at knifepoint while wearing a mask as a disguise. Lee got his nickname in the press because the victim recognized his foul breath from the restaurant where she worked, Kagawa, which belonged to Lee's family.

Lee fled from his trial in Massachusetts while out on $100,000 bail, and investigators long believed he had fled the state. But it was only recently, after nearly 17 years, that investigators got a lead on his whereabouts here in the Bay Area. A $10,000 reward for information leading to his capture was announced last fall.

Lee was convicted by a Massachusetts jury in absentia, but has never served time for his sentence.

"I greatly appreciate the work of the Massachusetts State Police Fugitive Unit and the men and women of the U.S. Marshals Service who made this arrest possible," said Quincy Police Department Chief Mark Kennedy in a statement.

"There are violent offenders out there who believe they can commit crimes and not be held accountable for their actions," said Chief Inspector Sean LoPiccolo, acting commander of the Pacific Southwest Regional Fugitive Task Force. "Tuen Lee was on the run for more than 16 years and the unwavering dedication by law enforcement to locate and arrest him hopefully brings peace of mind to the victim and her family."

The Pacific Southwest Regional Fugitive Task Force was formed in 2002, and it has partnership agreements with over 53 federal, state, and local agencies that help them to track down fugitives in the most violent cases.

Ex-Windsor mayor Dominic Foppoli was accused of sexual assault by more than a dozen women, but the state AG’s office says they don’t have the evidence to prosecute him, though several accusers’ civil cases will still proceed.

The big wine country political scandal of 2021 was the mayor of Windsor (in Sonoma County) being accused of sexual assault by more than 12 women. Among Foppoli’s many accusers were a former mayor of Sonoma, a former Windsor city councilmember, and reality TV star and Teen Mom personality Farrah Abraham. Foppoli resigned as mayor in May 2021, and has since been chased off to his wealthy family’s castle in Italy.

But it appears all of the criminal charges in these alleged assaults are being dropped, or rather “suspended.” The Chronicle reports that state Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office will not pursue criminal charges against Foppoli, saying the evidence they have is inadequate for a case.

“We reviewed the investigation done by the Sonoma County Sheriff’s office as well as conducted our own additional investigation. At this time, we don’t have enough evidence to warrant filing charges on the cases not barred by the statute of limitations,” a spokesperson for the AG’s office said in a statement to the Chronicle. “However, our investigation remains open, and we urge anyone who believes they may be a victim or who has evidence to come forward.”

(The state AG’s office stepped in, as one of the accusers was a prosecutor for the Sonoma County DA’s office, so that office recused itself from the investigation.)

Some of the accusers spoke with the Chronicle, and were not happy about the news.

“It just made me really sad,” former Sonoma Mayor Rachel Hundley told the paper. Hundley had accused Foppoli with regards to a 2015 incident. “Here is another man in power who hurt women and even the California attorney general wasn’t going to be able to hold him accountable.”

Foppoli himself emailed a response to the Chronicle, which that paper described as “a lengthy, wide-ranging emailed statement.”

“There were some women involved in this that I cared for and had real relationships with that I realized I must have hurt bad enough that they would join in on something like this,” he told the paper. “I have come to realize through a lot of prayer and reflection over the last 3 years that especially in my younger years I was not an ideal partner. To them I apologize.”

Foppoli still faces three civil lawsuits over the alleged assaults: one from seven of his accusers, another from Farrah Abraham, and a third from a Montana woman who was 18 when she says he assaulted her in 2020.

Related: Disgraced Windsor Ex-Mayor’s Latest Sexual Battery Charge Comes from ‘Teen Mom’ Farrah Abraham [SFist]

Image via Facebook

We’ve heard untold numbers of sexual assault stories from women riding Lyft and Uber over the years, but the latest stands out, because the alleged victim says she was impregnated by a driver who raped her.

Allegations from women riding Uber and Lyft saying drivers committed sexual assaults are nothing new. Consider that in late 2019, Lyft faced a lawsuit from 14 different women claiming their Lyft drivers sexually assaulted them, and only three months later, another 20 women filed a similar lawsuit saying they’d been sexually assaulted too.

But it’s even more troubling that CNN reports that a Florida woman just sued Lyft in a San Francisco federal court saying their her driver not only raped her, but impregnated her too. The incident happened in 2019, and the child is now nearly four years old.  

The plaintiff has gone public with her full name, Tabatha Means, and her full lawsuit is available online. It does not name the driver, but says the driver first asked her to sit in the front seat, then touched her inappropriately during the ride, and then insisted on helping her into the house because she was intoxicated. That’s when she says the driver raped her.

Lyft contends the rape occurred during an “off-app” ride, and therefore they bear no responsibility. Means says that while her ex-husband ordered the ride for her, it was definitely an app-ordered ride.

Lyft said in a statement to CNN that “The alleged incident from 2019 did not take place on the Lyft platform while using the Lyft app, but rather involved a separate trip arranged between the individuals involved. Lyft has worked to design policies and features that protect both drivers and riders, and we are always working to make Lyft an even safer platform.”

Means’s attorney is indignant toward that claim. “This incident absolutely involved a trip booked through the Lyft App, and Lyft’s attempt to deflect liability is a perfect example of its bad faith handling of this crisis,” that attorney Rachel Abrams said in a statement to CNN. “There is no dispute Tabatha’s Lyft driver repeatedly raped her resulting in pregnancy and the birth of her son.”

And Means’s lawsuit says that she has genetic testing results confirming “probability of 99.9999999998%” certainty that the Lyft driver is indeed the child’s father.

“Every day is a battle,” Means said in an interview with CNN in an interview Friday. “I cannot imagine a day of my life without that little boy that was a surprise and not expected, but he is everything to me.”

Meanwhile, a 2022 civil suit from 550 women claiming their driver sexually assaulted them is still making its way through the courts.

Related: Lyft Hit With Sexual Assault Lawsuit From 14 Different Women [SFist]

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - AUGUST 12: A sign is posted in front of a Lyft driver center on August 12, 2020 in San Francisco, California. Lyft reported a 61 percent drop in second quarter revenues with earnings of $339.3 million compared to $867.3 million one year ago. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

It took 13 years, but prosecutors at long last won a rape and murder conviction of a 72-year-old man accused of killing and raping a 37-year-old woman in an incident dating back to 2010.

Way back in 2010, Mission Local ran a story about a “suspicious death” at the Mission District SRO Krishna Hotel. We now know that the victim was 37-year-old Amy Mustain, according to KRON4, and the circumstances of her death were far more brutal than initially realized. District Attorney Brooke Jenkins’s office announced Thursday that they’d obtained guilty verdicts for 72-year-old Henry Hall, also then a resident at the Krishna Hotel, on charges of murder, rape by force, and sodomy by use of force.

“I would like to thank the jury for their service and thoughtful application of the law in bringing justice to the victim and her family after 13 long years,” Assistant District Attorney Charly Weissenbach said in a statement. “While there is nothing we can do to bring the victim back, this verdict condemns Mr. Hall for the brutal, violent sexual assault and murder of a particularly vulnerable victim who misplaced her trust and paid the ultimate cost.”

Yes, 13 years seems like a long time to get a guilty verdict, considering that Mustain’s body was found in Hall’s room. But KRON4 points out that Hall has been in custody for about three years at this point, since his September 16, 2020 arrest.

KTVU has some background on the 2010 killing, in which Mustain went to Hall’s room after an argument with her husband. According to police work and forensics, Hall gave Mustain heroin and cocaine before raping and killing her.

According to the DA’s office, Hall faces life in a state prison without parole, and his sentencing is currently scheduled for October 10, 2023.

Related: Suspect Detained in Earlier Kidnapping and Attempted Rape of Elderly SF Woman [SFist]

Image: Cocoablini via Wikimedia Commons

It’s unknown whether the victim was a student, but there is a physical description of the suspect, who has been seen “on campus before.”

It was first reported Wednesday on NBC Bay Area that a woman had been raped on the Stanford University campus, and there was not a lot of detail at the time. That station noted that “a woman said she was grabbed, taken into a bathroom and raped,” and that “It happened around 5 p.m. Tuesday near Wilbur Hall while summer classes were underway, and she claimed to have seen the man on campus before.”

We now have a description of the suspect. While the victim has indicated she does “not want to speak with law enforcement at this time,” according to a Stanford Safety Alert, we do have the additional information that she was “physically restrained (grabbed) and taken to a restroom” where the attack occurred. (The residential complex Wilbur Hall is seen above).

Per the alert, the suspect is described as an adult Black male, “6' tall with a thin build, brown eyes, and a faded beard.” The information comes from a mandatory reporter, that is, university staff or personnel from whom reporting such incidents is mandatory if they’re made aware.

"We always want people to be vigilant about their surroundings,” YWCA Golden Gate-Silicon Valley CEO Adriana Caldera told KTVU. “Make sure they know where they’re going. Where the physical buildings are where they’re going to be. We want people to feel safe.”

It’s unclear whether either the victim or the attacker were students.

Related: Victim Of Stanford Rape Releases Powerful Letter She Read In Court [SFist]

Image: Stanford.edu

SFPD stated Friday that a thirty-something-year-old man was arrested in relation to an earlier kidnapping and attempted rape of a local elderly woman in SF's Inner Sunset neighborhood.

Although the pandemic has lowered the number of reported violent crimes in SF since March, incidences of attempted kidnapping, rape, and other like-criminal acts are still much higher than they were just eight years ago. Last month, for example, a 73-year-old woman — who remains unidentified — was subjected to kidnapping and attempted rape by one 34-year-old Daniel Williams.

Though the time of the assault is unclear, KPIX reports that the September 22 incident transpired at the 1300 block of 7th Avenue — an otherwise sleepy, mellow area just a block from the Golden Gate Park.

SFPD officers responded to a report of a person sifting through trash in the area and on-site police later learned that Williams had tried to rape the unidentified victim.

The local news outlet states that Williams ran away from the scene once he was confronted by law enforcement, but officers soon chased him down and took him into custody. Investigators involved with the case soon determined Williams had also committed additional crimes against the victim, and he was promptly charged with "aggravated kidnapping, assault, elder abuse, sexual battery, false imprisonment, and providing false identification to police."

The kidnapping and attempted rape of this elderly woman comes at a time where local incidences of domestic violence have surged in the Bay Area. Social workers and those familiar with this type of criminal activity cite the insular habits many have adopted becuase of shelter-in-place and social distancing; people who've been subjected to abuse — be it domestic violence or civil harassment — are struggling to reach out.

Individuals with any information on the aforementioned crimes Willams participated in are suggested to call SFPD's 24 Hour Tip Line at (415) 575-4444 or Text a Tip to "TIP411" and begin that message with "SFPD."

Related: New Nonprofit Delivers Fresh Produce to SF Seniors — Including Retired Nurse Who Remembers AIDS Epidemic

Elderly San Francisco Woman Assaulted and Robbed In Home Invasion

Image: Google Maps

Police insist that a man with multiple rape charges who’s legally changed his name to ‘Pirate’ is “not currently wanted for any crimes,” but this has done little to soothe nerves in Shasta County.

You probably would not forget the face seen in the below photo, even if you didn’t know he was previously convicted of assault and has been charged in several cases involving the kidnapping and abuse of women in three states. The northern California town of Redding certainly remembers the 2004 assault he committed there — as the Redding Record Searchlight explains, he was charged with rape in the case but was ultimately convicted only of assault with a deadly weapon after the rape charge got dropped — since which time he has received a conspicuous face tattoo and changed his name to “Pirate.” As the Bay Area News Group reports, Redding is quite on edge upon learning of his return, which has authorities trying to calm everyone down.

The Redding Police Department stresses that Pirate (real name Daniel Selovich) is no longer wanted for any crimes, and is free to live there. “He has a substantial criminal history and at this point he has paid his debt for what he's been convicted of,” Sgt. Todd Cogle told KRCR. "I live here and I have loved ones here as well. I know it's worrying to know that he is on the streets but he is a free man. You have to treat him like every other man you see on the street."

Pirate technically only has two convictions on charges other than rape, but he was also charged with a five-week kidnapping and sexual assault ordeal in Alaska that would end up being dismissed. He was (eventually) found guilty in the 2004 attack on a mentally and physically disabled woman in Las Vegas, and according to a separate KRCR report, another 2004 rape under a bridge in Redding. He bolted for New Mexico, but was found in 2010 and served four years for the Redding assault.

The Alaska story is the ugliest, not that they need to be ranked. He moved to Alaska in 2015 after serving his sentence, where he allegedly kidnapped a woman and kept her captive for five weeks, allegedly beating her, sexually assaulting her, and duct-taping her to his person at night to prevent her escape. She did manage to call for help and was rescued, but heartbreakingly, died of reported natural causes shortly before the trial. Charges in the case were then dropped. But there was some degree of justice, because DNA from that case led to his conviction for the Las Vegas case a decade prior — though he took a plea for the lesser charge of sexually motivated coercion, per the Record Searchlight. He was extradited to Nevada and served another four years there.

After his release, he returned to Alaska late last year, where the blogs hounded him and neighbors posted their interactions with him to social media to warn other residents last month. Clearly unwelcome, he's moved back to Redding as of this month, where police say he is essentially homeless.

It may help your peace of mind that Redding is 217 miles from San Francisco, and a roughly four-hour car drive.

Related: BART Issues Weird PSA That Implies It's Women's Responsibility To Avoid Creeps On Trains [SFist]

Image: Redding Police Department

*This story has been corrected to show that Pirate has not technically been convicted of rape, but has been charged with the crime multiple times and has been convicted on lesser charges.

You know that sort of hacky insult that goes something like "when you open up the dictionary to the definition of [whatever], you see [whoever's] picture"? That cliché is now reality for Brock Turner, the former Stanford student who served a shockingly short sentence for a brutal rape last year.

As previously reported, Turner became the actual "poster child" (another hackneyed phrase that one rarely gets to use literally) for sexual assault at California State Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo last fall. School-sponsored posters that read "Don't be that person. Perpetrators of sexual assault, stalking and dating violence look like regular people" over a photo of a broadly grinning Turner appeared across the school's campus as part of Cal Poly's "Safer" Program.

Read all SFist coverage of the Brock Turner rape case here

And now, Snopes confirms, Turner's booking photo appears in a college-level textbook entitled Introduction to Criminal Justice, 2nd Ed., the ISBN of which is 9781506347721, in case you want to check Snopes' work.

The textbook was written by University of Colorado, Denver professor Callie Marie Rennison, "a Professor in the School of Public Affairs (SPA), and the former Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs in SPA. Currently, she is the Director of Equity and Title IX Coordinator for the CU Denver," the school's website says.

According to the caption beneath Turner's photo, which appears at the top of a section in the book defining "Rape":

Brock Turner, a Stanford student who raped and assaulted an unconscious female student behind a dumpster at a fraternity party, was recently released from jail after serving only three months. Some are shocked at how short the sentence is. Others who are more familiar with the way sexual violence has been handled in the criminal justice system are shocked that he was found guilty and served any time at all. What do you think?

Glad you asked, book! I think that if a person who had to be dragged off a woman by two men as he raped her, then blamed a school's culture for his act and, upon his release couldn't even fill out his sex-offender papers truthfully isn't a great person to use as the living, breathing definition of rape, I don't know who is.

Previously: Recall Campaign Underway For Judge In Brock Turner Case

Despite the fact that a lot of people will tell you that nightlife in SF is on the wane and isn't as vibrant as it used to be in the age of Netflix and chill, the SFPD is blaming an increase in nightlife on an uptick in rape cases in the city. This comes out of a Police Commission meeting last week where, as the Examiner reports, Police Chief Bill Scott and Northern Station Captain John Jaimerena were trying to explain a seeming rise in rape cases reported in the Northern District, which includes the Marina, Polk Gulch, Fillmore, and Hayes Valley.

"What we’re seeing [in the Northern District] is, you know, a lot of stuff happening at nightclubs, people drinking," said Jaimerena, in regard to 20 reported rapes so far in 2017 — there were 40 total in 2016, up from 31 the year before, but down from 43 in 2014.

The cops were generalizing and the figures don't actually seem to represent an uptick — also, 20 rapes represents less than one tenth of the city's total reported cases for January to June, which was 223. But the Entertainment Commission and those in the nightlife industry are crying foul over these statements, saying that it implies responsibility on their part for crimes that didn't even happen on their premises.

Entertainment Commissioner Steven Lee calls the SFPD's statements "ridiculous," and fellow commissioner Ben Bleiman, who also heads the SF Bar Owner Alliance, tells the Examiner, "Overwhelmingly, the owners and the managers of nightclubs and bars and music venues take sexual assault very seriously." Bleiman also notes that ride-hailing apps have made nighttime revelers far more mobile than they once were, blurring the lines between districts. "They may start in the Mission and then go to North Beach and end up in the Marina," he says — even though that's like $50 in Ubers right there.

Jaimerena, speaking to the apparent increase in rape cases last year in his district, told the Police Commission that he was going to be increasing "communication" with bar owners to raise awareness about rape.

On top of the widely reported rise in petty crime on the BART system so far this year, there's been a disturbing rise in violent sexual crimes as well that until now hasn't been discussed. Perhaps heeding recent calls from the media and the public regarding a lack of transparency of crime reporting by BART, new BART police chief Carlos Rojas — who was just sworn in May 25 — just released data about rapes and sexual assaults that have been reported on trains and in stations and station parking lots during the first six months of this year. In those six months, there have been seven reported rapes and 28 reported sexual assaults, as the Mercury News reports, compared with eight rapes and 28 assaults in all of 2016. This puts both statistics on track to be doubled by year end, but Rojas cautioned that this shouldn't necessarily be seen as a trend.

The Mercury News also notes that the 28 assaults in 2016 marked a 75 percent increase over 2015.

Regarding the rapes, Rojas says they're cause for "concern," but "You have to keep it within context. Really, what you start looking at is, ‘Is there a certain individual that’s going around sexually assaulting people, and do we have a serial rapist, or is there a certain activity or environment that is contributing to somebody being placed in a vulnerable position?'" He said the answer was no to those questions in all seven rape cases, and that the victims, who were both male and female, knew the assailants in several of the cases. Arrests were made in five of the seven cases.

Details about each of the 28 sexual battery and assault cases were not given — only two cases from February made some headlines: this one involving an interrupted sexual assault at Rockridge Station, and this one involving a creeper who followed and cornered at woman at MacArthur Station.

BART spokesman Taylor Huckaby gave a statement to the Merc saying that BART Police evaluate each case before deciding whether to publicize it. And the factors that effect that decision include “where the investigation stands, what kind of evidence needs to be preserved, whether the police department is seeking the public’s help in apprehending the suspect, and whether there is any benefit to passenger safety."

In April, BART posted this somewhat tone-deaf PSA poster on trains, educating women about how to "avoid creeps."

Below, as described to the Mercury News over the phone by Rojas, are descriptions of the seven cases labeled as rapes:

• Feb. 12, Rockridge station: Officers intervened in an argument between a man and a woman in the station’s parking lot after a passenger called police. Police found the man and woman involved in sexual activity in the parking lot, and after speaking with the woman, determined she had not consented to sex. Officers arrested 47-year-old Thomas Johnson of Oakland on suspicion of rape.
• March 2, San Leandro station: A man reported he was sexually assaulted in the station’s parking lot by a Lyft driver. Rojas said the passenger and suspect, later identified as a 39-year-old Oakland resident, had been in a prior consensual relationship, but at the time of the incident, no consent was given. Police arrested the suspect, but the case was later dismissed, Rojas said, because the victim stopped cooperating.
• March 9, San Bruno station: A woman told police a man followed her into a restroom at the station and told her she was going to have sex with her and then grabbed her breast. She was able to get away from the assailant, who was later arrested and identified as 42-year-old San Francisco resident Timothy Cobb.
• March 15, MacArthur station: The suspect, who was ultimately arrested and identified as 31-year-old Oakland resident Eric Starghill, led his victim into a stairwell at the station and forced the person to perform a sex act. Rojas said he didn’t have information on whether the victim was a man or woman.
• April 3, Richmond station: A man told police he met another man at the station under the impression that he was modeling for an underwear ad. The suspect, later arrested and identified as 30-year-old Richmond resident Jordan Davis, performed oral sex on the victim, Rojas said.
• April 25, Warm Springs: A man and another person engaged in conversation while on the train. During that conversation, the man began masturbating under his clothing and allegedly sexually assaulted the victim. The victim declined to cooperate, Rojas said, and the investigation was suspended. He said he didn’t have information on whether the victim was a man or woman.
• May 24, North Berkeley: A man on a train sat next to a woman, who is autistic, and exposed himself to her before placing her hand on his genitals, Rojas said. Police have not yet identified him.

Related: BART Issues Weird PSA That Implies It's Women's Responsibility To Avoid Creeps On Trains