Former Sheriff's Deputy Ordered to Stand Trial on Rape, Kidnap Charges

Former Sheriff's Deputy Ordered to Stand Trial on Rape, Kidnap Charges

Posted: April 1, 2009 09:15 PM
KESQ.com News Services

INDIO - A former Riverside County sheriff's deputy must stand trial on charges of kidnapping and raping a woman in La Quinta, a judge ruled Wenesday.

Marc Javier Diaz, 35, of Indio, is charged with kidnapping to commit rape and two counts of rape under the threat of authority of a public official. He could face life without the possibility of parole if convicted of the kidnap-to-rape charge, according to prosecutors.

After a two-hour preliminary hearing, Riverside County Superior Court Judge John C. Evans ordered Diaz to stand trial on all three charges and set an April 15 post-indictment arraignment date.

Diaz allegedly walked into Point Happy Massage Therapy at 78370 Highway 111 in La Quinta the evening of Jan. 31 and asked for a 30-minute massage, according to Maria Montalvo, who co-owns the business with her husband.

"He told me he was an undercover cop," Montalvo testified, adding that Diaz then flashed a badge at her that was encased in a black wallet.

She described the badge as "shiny" with "stars," but said he displayed it so quickly that she did not know what kind of badge it was.

Montalvo said Diaz asked to see a business license before she took him into a back room, where he asked to see her husband.

She said her husband and another woman who was helping the couple move into the business, which had only opened two days earlier, came into the room at that point.

"He told my husband he had sent an undercover cop to check the business because there was something illegal going on," Montalvo testified.

She said Diaz asked for identification from all three of them. The business owners showed him their California driver's licenses, and the other woman -- the alleged victim -- had a Mexican passport, according to Montalvo.

The woman, referred to in court documents as Jane Doe, testified through a Spanish-language interpreter that Diaz told her that he was going to take her to the Indio police station.

"He told me he was going to check my fingerprints and we walked to his car," she said.

Diaz drove her to a secluded location next to some railroad tracks and threatened her with arrest and deportation if she did not have sex with him, she testified.

"That person told me he wanted to make a pact with me, that he wanted to have sexual relations with me in exchange for letting me go to my home," she said.

The woman testified that Diaz then forced her to orally copulate him and perform other sexual acts.

"I put my clothes on and he told me he would take me back to where he found me," she said. "He told me not to tell anyone about anything."

She said he threatened her with arrest again and told her to go back to Los Angeles, where she lives.

"He told me he would come back, that he didn't want to see me around and if he did, he would report me to immigration," she said.

Diaz worked for the Coachella Valley Unified School District for 16 months before his arrest in February. Officials at the Coachella Valley superintendent's office have declined comment on his employment history, calling it a "personnel matter."

Diaz was a Riverside County sheriff's deputy for nine years before he resigned in July 2004, a month after being arrested on suspicion of soliciting and engaging in prostitution in the area of Bliss and Oasis streets in Indio.

At the time, he was assigned to the Indio courthouse.

The District Attorney's Office never filed charges against Diaz on the prostitution allegation, citing insufficient evidence, a spokesman for the office has said.

Diaz is being held at the county jail in Banning in lieu of $1 million bail.