Former CSUMB student sentenced to 14 years in prison for 2016 sexual assault.

The young woman told Marina Police detectives she thought Ruben Matthew Rodriguez was drunk and offered to let him sleep on the floor of her CSU Monterey Bay dorm room. Rodriguez later told Marina Police detectives that he wanted to get to know her better and he might get “lucky.”

Two years later, Rodriguez is headed to prison to serve a 14-year sentence for one count of first degree burglary and one count of forcible penetration, Monterey County District Attorney Dean D. Flippo announced on Aug. 21.

Rodriguez pleaded no contest to the charges on June 19, after spending two years in Monterey County Jail on $1.25 million bail awaiting trial. He will have to register as a sex offender for his lifetime. He originally was charged with seven felony counts of burglary and sexual assault. 

During the sentencing, the victim—identified in court as Jane Doe—told Judge Julie Culver that her life was changed forever by the assault, and that she lives in fear of it happening again.

Court documents tell a tale that is all too common on college campuses. (The Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network, known as RAINN, reports that 23 percent of undergraduate women experience rape or sexual assault, based on a 2015 study.)

The two students met at a party four days before the sexual assault, in May 2016. The night Rodriguez tried to see Jane Doe was the day before students had to move out of campus housing. He told police he thought it was important to see her before she disappeared for the summer.

Rodriguez told police he knocked first on the suite shared by four female students who were all present at the time, and when that failed, he went outside and entered through a window. From there, the students’ two stories diverge, with Doe telling police she offered to let him stay on the floor, and saying that she kissed him, but only in the hopes of getting him to leave.

She reported that Rodriguez forcibly touched her breasts under her clothes and digitally penetrated her, despite telling him repeatedly to stop. She told him, in effect, “I don’t do this type of stuff with people I don’t know.”

Doe told Rodriguez to leave, and while escorting him to the door he made one more attempt to grab her and take her back to the bed. She pushed him away and he left.

Rodriguez then returned 45 minutes later, entering through the window a second time. He told her he “couldn’t resist,” and she tried to alert a roommate, prompting him to leave, according to the DA.

Doe and her family reported the assault to the CSUMB police dispatch, and was told that the Promontory, while run by the university, is under the Marina Police Department’s jurisdiction. The DA’s Office says CSUMB authorities cooperated with the investigation by providing video surveillance recordings outside of the building, which showed Rodriguez entering and exiting the building that night.

Rodriguez left the campus the next day, and was eventually located with assistance from the U.S. Marshals Office in Chico, where he was arrested on July 6, 2016. 

The CSUMB Title IX Office did its own investigation which concluded that Rodriguez’s acts constituted sexual misconduct, sexual harassment and stalking, according to the DA. The campus' Title IX officials also provided Jane Doe with an advocate and provided her with referrals for counseling.

With her family by her side in court on Aug. 21, Doe told Judge Culver she thinks about the assault every day and that she worries about walking alone and is fearful an intruder will again break into her home in the middle of the night.

Doe also said she does not see herself as a victim because that would give Rodriguez power over her.

“She does not wish him harm but is hopeful he is aware how wrong his actions were that night and will learn never to treat a woman’s rejection of him as a joke,” the DA's statement reads.

Culver praised Doe for her “remarkable strength,” before sentencing Rodriguez to prison.

Last fall the CSUMB community was on edge after two alleged on-campus rapes and one case of stalking were reported to administrators. They held a forum on Oct. 16 to answer questions and explain the complexities of Title IX, designed to protect the educational rights of students. Students can report assaults to either the Title IX Office, or the police, or both.