Suspects plead not guilty in Santa Rosa hostage, rape case

Three men accused of holding a woman against her will for weeks and raping and torturing her at a rural south Santa Rosa property pleaded not guilty to all charges Tuesday in a Sonoma County courtroom.

Jose Angel Barajas-Mireles, 34, of Santa Rosa is the suspected ringleader of the group. He is charged with two counts each of rape, forced oral copulation and forced sodomy, as well as a single count of false imprisonment and six counts of conspiracy to commit the sexual assaults.

Outside court Tuesday, Barajas-Mireles’ lawyer, Andy Martinez, said that his client did not abduct the woman, and that she and his client were lovers. Martinez said Barajas-Mireles hired the woman as a bookkeeper for his painting business last fall, and that the two began a relationship, leading to the dissolution of Barajas-Mireles’ marriage.

Martinez accused the woman of breaking up Barajas-Mireles’ marriage and denied his client raped or tortured her. He called the woman “a lying, conniving home wrecker,” and said his initial investigation has determined the woman borrowed her accusations from a telenovela.

Also charged in the case are Guillermo Cresteno Avina, 34, of Santa Rosa and Jaime Gomez Cisneros, 52, of Watsonville. Each man is charged with six counts of conspiracy to hold the woman against her will, as well as transporting her from the Stony Point Road property where the assaults allegedly occurred, and preventing her from leaving the property, under Barajas-Mireles’ direction.

The 22-year-old woman turned up at the Petaluma police station on Feb. 19, saying she had been abducted off the street at gunpoint, held captive, beaten and sexually assaulted for several weeks, and that she did not recognize her captors, Sonoma County sheriff’s detectives said shortly after her arrest.

Despite the shocking allegations, sheriff’s officials did not arrest anyone in the case until the following week, and the charges brought against the three men did not reference kidnapping or firearms. Sheriff’s officials said, however, that the woman had suffered injuries consistent with a sexual assault, and that they believed she had been held hostage since sometime around the holidays.

Each man remains jailed in lieu of $6 million bail. They are due back in court Wednesday morning to set a preliminary hearing date.

You can reach Staff Writer Paul Payne at 568-5312 or paul.payne@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @ppayne.