A Mexican man living in the US illegally used his job as an Uber driver to target intoxicated young women and was charged Monday with raping, assaulting, and robbing four victims, California prosecutors say. Alfonso Alarcon-Nunez drove women to their homes, assaulted them, and stole property including cellphones, computers, and jewelry, officials say. He collected his fare payments through the smartphone app Venmo to disguise his identity and his Uber records, the AP reports. DNA evidence helped lead detectives to Alarcon-Nunez, who was arrested at his Santa Maria home last week, San Luis Obispo County District Attorney Dan Dow says. The alleged crimes occurred over four weeks starting in mid-December in San Luis Obispo, a city of about 45,000 that is home to California Polytechnic State University.
Alarcon-Nunez's victims are between 19 and 22 and three were drunk at the time of the crimes, Dow says. Alarcon-Nunez, 39, faces 10 criminal charges, including rape of an intoxicated victim and first-degree burglary. Detectives are looking for potential witnesses and trying to determine if there are additional victims in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties, where Alarcon-Nunez had been driving for Uber since September. Dow says that in some cases, Alarcon-Nunez wasn't driving for Uber when he picked up women, but parked outside bars or restaurants and picked up passengers waiting for another driver. Dow says the alleged crimes show that the company should improve its driver screening process.
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