Crime & Safety
Mother Of Uber Driver Rape Victim Confronts Daughter's Attacker
"I've worked so hard to raise (my daughters) and keep them safe, and you took all of that away in one night," she told her child's rapist.
LOS ANGELES, CA — A former driver for Uber was sentenced Wednesday to six years in state prison for raping an intoxicated female passenger in a North Hollywood motel room about 2 1/2 years ago.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Craig Richman also ordered Alaric Spence, 49, of North Hollywood, to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life and not to have any contact with the victim for the next decade.
"I've tried to process what happened to my body over time," the victim wrote in a statement that was read in court by a Los Angeles Police Department detective. "Every night, I cried myself to sleep and used frozen spoons that I kept in my freezer to put on my swollen eyes in the morning."
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Addressing the defendant directly, the victim wrote, "I forgive you, only so I can move on with my life."
The victim's mother said she needed to be in the downtown Los Angeles courtroom to face her daughter's assailant and to let him "know that what he has done is not right."
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"I've worked so hard to raise (my daughters) and keep them safe, and you took all of that away in one night," the woman said. "May God forgive you."
The defendant countered that he had been "falsely accused" and that he had "no faith" in the court system.
The judge chose the mid-term of six years -- midway between the three- year minimum term requested by Spence's attorney and the maximum of eight years requested by the prosecution.
Outside court afterward, the victim's mother told City News Service that she was upset by the sentence.
"It's a farce of the court when a victim gets raped and he gets a gimmicky sentence," she said.
Spence was convicted Nov. 20 of one count of rape of an intoxicated person, but jurors acquitted him of two other counts -- kidnapping for rape and rape of an unconscious person.
Spence picked up the heavily intoxicated woman in downtown Los Angeles on June 23, 2017, and drove her to a North Hollywood motel, where he raped her, according to Deputy District Attorney Paul Thompson. The woman subsequently woke up and contacted police.
Spence -- whom police said had been an Uber driver for six months -- was arrested the day after the attack and has remained behind bars since then.
City News Service
