Recalling feeling “pure panic and terror,” Jane Doe H.O.C. said she remembers wanting to leave and repeatedly saying no as Arian Eteghaei raped and assaulted her in his apartment. 

That’s what she testified before a Santa Barbara County Superior Court jury in Santa Barbara on Friday in the trial for Eteghaei, her on-and-off boyfriend from 2020-21.

Eteghaei faces multiple charges, including forcible rape, attempted rape, forcible sexual penetration by foreign object, forcible oral copulation, false imprisonment by violence, and battery.

The charges are connected to separate alleged assaults on six women, including his ex-girlfriend identified in court as Doe H.O.C.

Eteghaei, 23, who was a first-year student at UC Santa Barbara in 2020-21, was arrested and criminally charged in August 2021 on suspicion of assaulting three women.

During the investigation, three more women came forward and reported their own assaults, according to authorities.

Doe H.O.C. recounted her assault to the jury on Friday, describing how Eteghaei raped and assaulted her in June 2021 during a prom-themed party hosted at his apartment on Del Playa Drive in Isla Vista. 

The two argued during the party after Doe H.O.C. learned Eteghaei was cheating on her. 

Doe H.O.C. testified that Eteghaei blocked the door as she was crying, grabbing her arm and pulling her hair to stop her from leaving his room.

She felt “pure panic and terror,” she said.

“I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’m trapped here,’” Doe H.O.C. testified. “‘I can’t get out of this room. He’s bigger and stronger than me.’” 

Eteghaei allegedly told her that she couldn’t leave because it was too late to walk back to her apartment that was two blocks away. 

In her testimony, Doe H.O.C. described how Eteghaei forced her to perform oral copulation, forcibly penetrated her, used sex toys on her and videographed her against her will. 

Doe H.O.C. testified that she told him she didn’t want to have sex with him because he might have a sexually transmitted disease after he slept with other people. Eteghaei allegedly told her it didn’t matter because they had already slept with each other after he slept with someone else.

She also described how the fear put her in a dissociated state, explaining it as an “out of body experience” and how she used her hands to try to block him from her genitalia. 

“I never stopped saying no,” Doe H.O.C. said. 

The jury was shown text messages of a poem Doe H.O.C. sent to Eteghaei a few days after the assault when she was back home in San Francisco. 

Doe H.O.C. read the poem from the stand, which described how she was taking multiple showers a day after the attack while left processing what happened, only getting a break when she fell asleep.

“That’s when I escape the nightmare that has become my every waking moment,” Doe H.O.C’s poem read.

The poem ended with her telling Eteghaei that she was taking her “power back” and was going to tell her mom what happened. 

Her voice cracked as she testified that it was “horrible” to tell her parents what had happened to her.

“I devastated them because this happened to their daughter, and all they wanted to do was keep me safe,” Doe H.O.C. said. “I felt like I traumatized them just by them hearing what happened to me.”

During the trial Friday, jurors saw a photo taken after the assault showing a small bruise on the woman’s arm. 

The jury also heard audio of a phone call between Doe H.O.C. and Eteghaei that occurred two months after the alleged assault. Law enforcement officers were with Doe H.O.C. during the call to record the conversation for the investigation.

During the call, Doe H.O.C. told Eteghaei that the alleged assault constantly played through her head and she was anxious about returning to Isla Vista.

Eteghaei told her that he was moving on from his past and was a different person. During the call, he apologized for what he “put her through” during their relationship and the prom-themed party.

Testimony in the trial is expected to continue on Monday.