Eugene weekly., June 10, 2004, Page 10, Image 10

BY ALAN PITTMAN
Blow Job
Ex-EPD cop on trial for allegedly
raping/abusing a dozen women.
R
oger Magaña allegedly used the
power of his Eugene Police badge to
rape, sodomize, kidnap, sexually
abuse and/or harass a dozen women.
Prosecutor Robert Lane said in his opening
statement last week that Magaña had “tar-
nished” the police badge for all officers in the
city. By convicting the recently fired officer,
Lane told the jury, “you’re going to restore
some of the luster of that badge.”
But defense attorney Russell Barnett said
in his opening that it was hard to believe that a
competent police department would have let
Magaña’s alleged crimes continue for so long
against so many victims without detection.
“He’s either the slickest guy working with the
dumbest people, or perhaps the accusations
don’t add up.”
A 31-year-old single mother of three was
the first alleged victim to testify in the trial,
which is expected to continue until mid July.
The mother said Magaña followed her and a
girlfriend in his patrol car late one night in
October 2001 after she walked out of Rockin’
Rodeo, a former nightclub located across from
the Hult Center.
The woman said Magaña ordered her out of
her parked car for a sobriety test and laughed at
her when she couldn’t walk a straight line. The
woman alleged Magaña gave her a choice: Get
arrested for drunken driving or meet him later.
She wasn’t attracted to Magaña, but “I didn’t
want a DUI,” the woman said. “I didn’t have a
choice.”
The woman said Magaña told her to drive
her friend home to Springfield, despite the fact
she was drunk, and then meet him at Papa’s
Pizza on Coburg Road. The woman did what
she was told and ended up following Magaña’s
patrol car to a dark parking lot behind
Meadowlark elementary school in
North Eugene at 3 am. There,
the woman alleged Magaña
kissed her, fondled her
breasts and put his hands
up her skirt, “with his
fingers in my vagina.”
The woman said
she didn’t report the
crime or call for help.
“I was scared,” she said.
“He was a police officer
in uniform with a gun and
handcuffs.”
sexually abused or raped. Often the abuse in-
volved “blow jobs,” Lane said, apologizing to
jurors for the language, “you’re going to hear it
a thousand times.”
• With one woman, one of several drug or
alcohol abusers Magaña allegedly targeted,
Magaña “would always say you’re going to
jail or you’re going to give me a
blow job,” Lane alleged. On
one occasion, Lane alleged
Magaña forced the woman
to kneel on the sticky
“utterly disgusting”
floor of the Monroe
Street Park restroom
and give him a blow
job. When she once
threatened to tell,
Magaña allegedly threat-
ened her with a gun and said
he would kill her if she did.
Magaña threatened the woman with arrest,
took her to a remote area by the railroad tracks,
grabbed her head and forced her to give him a blow job,
prosecutor Robert Lane alleged.
At one point Magaña saw the woman had a
small bag of marijuana, but he threw the illegal
drug to the ground and didn’t pursue the mat-
ter, the woman alleged.
On cross examination, defense attorney
Barnett asked why the woman called Magaña
months later if she had been sexually as-
saulted.
The woman admitted that she had a drink-
ing problem and said she called Magaña while
intoxicated and regretted it afterward. She said
thinking about the sexual assault still “makes
me sick inside.”
In his two-hour opening statement, prose-
cutor Lane laid out his plans for testimony
from a dozen more women Magaña allegedly
• At a softball team party, Magaña offered a
drunk 19-year-old woman a ride home. Instead
he took her to a Eugene Airport parking lot, al-
legedly threatened to arrest her for underage
drinking, “held her head down” and “forced
his penis into her mouth” and ejaculated.
When she threatened to report him, Lane
alleged Magaña said, “who you going to be-
lieve, you’re a 19-year-old, you’re drunk, I’m a
cop.”
A few days later, Lane alleged Magaña
came to the young woman’s house while off-
duty, again threatened to arrest her, and then
“pushes her down and rapes her.”
• One woman with drug problems and a 9-
year-old daughter traded sex with Magaña for fa-
vors such as not arresting her or for allowing her
to look at her secret police records, Lane alleged.
At one point, the “paranoid” woman feared
Magaña and other cops would kill her. After per-
forming oral sex on officer Magaña, she spat out
his semen on some sweatpants which she kept as
evidence, Lane alleged. The semen’s DNA
matches Magaña, according to Lane.
• Magaña allegedly stopped a heroin addict
and fondled her on the pretense of conducting
a drug search. Magaña threatened the woman
with arrest, took her to a remote area
by the railroad tracks, grabbed her head and
forced her to give him a blow job, Lane al-
leged.
• Magaña allegedly tried to force yet an-
other blow job with another young woman
with drug problems. But the woman escaped
the patrol car and ran.
• Magaña responded to a 911 call for help
from a domestic violence victim. But instead
of helping, Magaña allegedly threatened the
woman with arrest to get another blow job.
• Responding to another domestic abuse
call, Magaña allegedly forced another woman
to give him a blow job by threatening to take
away the woman’s children.
• Magaña met one 20-year-old at an under-
age drinking party the police broke up. He in-
vited her to ride in his police car. Interested in
police work, the woman rode with Magaña 20
to 30 times before the officer allegedly came to
her apartment, pushed her down, orally
sodomized her and raped her. “He really didn’t
get much of an erection,” Lane said, but his
penis “penetrated her vagina.”
• Magaña’s final alleged victim called 911
after the officer allegedly entered her apart-
ment uninvited, grabbed her breasts and said
he wanted to “bend me over and do me.”
Lane said the women’s testimony will be
supported with records of thousands of per-
sonal cell phone calls Magaña made and with
police dispatch records and records of patrol
car computer use.
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