Judge orders trial after SSU student testifies that classmate raped her

A Sonoma State University student testified in court Friday that a classmate raped her inside his campus apartment in 2018 after she blacked out following a drinking game with him and his male roommates.

The woman, a 20-year-old junior identified in court as Jane Doe, was the first witness to take the stand in Sonoma County Superior Court during a preliminary hearing for Patrick James O'Regan, 22. Prosecutors have charged him with rape and sodomy of an intoxicated person.

The alleged assault occurred in O'Regan's campus apartment in the Beaujolais Village housing complex on Dec. 7, 2018.

The woman testified that she knew O'Regan and that the two had previously had consensual sex but that they were not in a relationship. She accepted his invitation that night to his apartment, where she became intoxicated after the drinking game, vomited in the living room and blacked out, she said.

She did not regain consciousness until she was in O'Regan's bed, she said. Her clothes had been removed, she said, and O'Regan was penetrating her.

“It wasn't like I was having sex,” she testified. “It was like I was just there.”

At the end of the daylong hearing, Judge Peter Ottenweller ruled there was enough evidence to proceed with the criminal case and ordered O'Regan to return to court on Feb. 25, when he'll be arraigned on felony charges, Ottenweller said.

The woman recounted the night of the alleged rape and the days that followed on Friday as her parents watched from the courtroom gallery. O'Regan, dressed in a blue button-up shirt, sat facing her as she testified. He shifted his gaze between her and the attorneys who questioned her.

She told the court that the sound of knocking on O'Regan's door led her to regain consciousness. O'Regan eventually opened the door from inside and one of the woman's friends entered and began dressing her, she said.

A roommate of O'Regan had alerted a friend of the woman that she was very intoxicated, leading another friend to come and get her, according to Scott Braccialini, the investigating Sonoma State University police officer, who testified later in the day.

Two of O'Regan's roommates helped her down a few flights of stairs and a friend drove her to her on-campus apartment, she said.

Hours later, on Dec. 8, Braccialini met her there after receiving a 2:30 a.m. report of an intoxicated person. He found the woman on her bed and she initially told him that she threw up from drinking. She later confided to him that she believed she had been raped and sodomized the previous night, he said.

She decided she wanted to get a rape kit test and Braccialini agreed to meet her at a hospital, where she underwent the exam, he said. She declined to name the suspect that day because she said she wasn't sure she wanted to press charges, but she arrived at the on-campus police station a few days later and named O'Regan as the assailant, Braccialini said.

His arrest came about five months later. He turned himself in after police issued an arrest warrant.

Jane Gaskell, O'Regan's lawyer, questioned the woman about her memory of the night. She also asked Braccialini to detail how he carried out his investigation.

He said he had interviewed several people, but under questioning acknowledged that the only recorded interview was with O'Regan. He also told the court that it was his first sexual assault case.

Gaskell, interviewed later by phone, declined to elaborate on the details of the case.

“We believe that a jury will see that he's not guilty when they get to hear the whole case,” she said.

O'Regan is no longer a student at Sonoma State, Gaskell said. He was accompanied by two people in court and declined to be interviewed.

You can reach Staff Writer Nashelly Chavez at 707-521-5203 or nashelly.chavez@pressdemocrat.com