A jury found former UC Santa Barbara student Arian Eteghaei guilty of three counts Friday after a three-month trial that accused him of sexually assaulting five women and battery against a sixth woman.
The jurors found Eteghaei, 23, guilty of sexual penetration of a foreign object and domestic violence battery against Jane Doe H.O.C., and forcible rape against Jane Doe M.E. They also found true the allegation of more than one victim, but were deadlocked on the other 14 counts.
Shortly after the verdicts were read, Superior Court Judge Von Deroian ordered that sheriff’s bailiffs remand Eteghaei into custody, where he will stay until sentencing. He had been out of custody on electronic monitoring for several years, and his defense attorney Leonard Levine argued that he should stay out of jail until sentencing.
There’s no indication he is a flight risk or public safety risk, Levine said, adding his client doesn’t have a passport.
“He’s now looking at 15 years to life,” Deputy District Attorney Lauren Franco said, arguing that the risk of him fleeing is higher now. He was convicted of two serious, violent sexual offenses, she added.
Bailiffs handcuffed him, with his hands in front of him, in the courtroom after Deroian’s order.
When deputies walked Eteghaei from the courtroom to a secure facility to await transportation to the jail, the man attempted to flee by running away toward State Street.
Noozhawk reporter Pricila Flores was downtown for an unrelated meeting and captured video of Eteghaei being apprehended by bailiffs after he ran down Figueroa Street to State Street, about one block from the courthouse. He was yelling something.
One bailiff grabbed him, but struggled to get control until another bailiff arrived at the scene. Two bystanders also appeared to help the bailiffs hold Eteghaei on the ground.
Sheriff’s bailiffs handle security at the county courthouses and commonly walk people in custody across Figueroa Street between the two buildings in downtown Santa Barbara. They also use elevators and corridors that are accessible to the public.
It’s an ongoing security concern, and a big reason there have been plans to build a new courthouse in place of the Figueroa Division Building at 118 E Figueroa St.
Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Raquel Zick confirmed that Eteghaei attempted to flee while he was being moved between the court and a secure facility.
She said he was “quickly apprehended by deputies.”
In response to a question about leg chains, Zick said he was cuffed, and it is not uncommon to have one method of restraint and not the other.
No injuries were reported in the incident, she said.
Assault Allegations
The criminal allegations are connected to separate assaults on six different women, including his ex-girlfriend identified in court as Doe H.O.C.
Eteghaei, who was a freshman at UC Santa Barbara in 2020-21, was arrested and criminally charged in August 2021 for alleged assaults on three women.
During the investigation, three more women came forward and reported their own assaults, according to authorities.
Each alleged victim in this case was identified anonymously as Jane Doe plus initials. Many of them testified against him in court during the trial, and Eteghaei also testified in his own defense.
Attorneys delivered closing arguments in the trial in December, and the jury has been deliberating since coming back from a holiday break. The jurors were deadlocked, unable to reach a unanimous verdict, on 14 counts.
Deroian declared a mistrial on those counts, and Franco, the prosecutor, said she will speak to the Jane Does before deciding whether to retry the charges.
The jurors had notified the judge Thursday and again Friday morning that they had reached verdicts on some of the counts.
Deroian sent a note to the jurors Friday that asked, “Would you like to continue to deliberate?” and the foreperson returned a note saying, “no, sorry.”
At that point, the judge had the jury return to the courtroom and deliver their verdicts.
All 12 people confirmed the verdicts and agreed that they were “hopelessly deadlocked” on the other counts.
A status hearing was scheduled for Feb. 17 with a sentencing hearing tentatively scheduled for April 8. The timeline could change depending on whether the District Attorney’s Office decides to retry any of the charges, while the defense attorneys indicated they plan to file a motion for a new trial.
