Homeless Man Convicted In Rape Of BART Passenger

SAN LEANDRO, CA – A transient man from San Francisco was convicted today of two counts of forced oral copulation and one count of rape for sexually assaulting an intoxicated woman in San Leandro who he met after she boarded a BART train in San Francisco.

Jurors, who deliberated for less than a day and a half, also convicted 29-year-old Meini Foster of multiple kidnapping clauses. He faces a state prison term of up to 75 years to life when he's sentenced by Alameda
County Superior Court Judge Paul Delucchi on Sept. 28.

However, they found him not guilty of an attempted sodomy charge, according to prosecutor Tim Wellman.

Police and prosecutors said the victim, who's in her 20s, works in San Francisco and after work on the night of Dec. 15, 2016, she drank alcohol with work colleagues at a holiday party for more than six hours before she
entered the Powell Street BART station in San Francisco at about 11:20 p.m.

BART surveillance camera footage shows that the woman was "swaying back and forth and had trouble maintaining her balance" and "is so intoxicated she falls forward onto her hands and knees," San Leandro police Officer Deborah Trujillo wrote in a probable cause statement.

The woman boarded a Dublin/Pleasanton-bound train at 11:30 p.m. and was seen leaving the Bay Fair BART station in San Leandro with Foster at about 1:04 a.m. the next day, the police report says.

Trujillo said Foster pulled her close to him when she tried to walk away from him and then led her down the stairs toward the station's exit.

Foster then continued to lead the woman as she stumbled and took her into the BART station's parking lot, according to Trujillo.

Foster next forced the woman onto nearby railroad tracks between Hesperian Boulevard and Halcyon Drive and forced her to orally copulate him by using physical force and verbal threats, Trujillo said.

The woman yelled for help and tried to free herself from Foster but he raped and sodomized her, according to Trujillo.

The woman continued to try to run and fight and yell for help but Foster again forced her to orally copulate him, Trujillo said.

Foster finally left the woman in the mud at the railroad tracks but she had a hard time finding her way and when she knocked on a family's door at 3 a.m. to ask for help the residents mistook her for a burglar, ordered her to leave and called 911, according to Trujillo.

However, police finally found the woman and took her to a hospital, where they conducted a sexual assault examination on her, Trujillo said.

The DNA that was found on the woman matches Foster's, which was in the criminal justice system database because he had a prior sexual assault conviction, police said.

Wellman said that during Foster's trial he was allowed to present evidence that in 2015 Foster sexually assaulted a homeless woman at the Pittsburg/Bay Point BART station and in 2016 he sexually battered a
16-year-old girl on a San Francisco Municipal Railway bus.

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