A 42-year-old Italian Uber driver has been sentenced to 36 months in prison and a fine by the Dietikon District Court for desecrating and kidnapping a female passenger. He will be expelled from the country for 7 years.
Junction Utoquai and Schoeckstrasse at Zurich’s Bellevue-Platz.
On Saturday, August 17, 2019, at 1:50 a.m., a young, intoxicated woman in Zurich called an Uber taxi to go to a colleague. The Uber driver let them in at District 4, then changed directions several times, and then logged out of the Uber app at 2:17 a.m. He drove with the woman to his apartment in Dietikon. At 9 a.m. the 30-year-old woke up naked in the bed of the strange man who was also lying naked next to her and who is said to have sexually molested her shortly after waking up.
In the subsequent criminal investigation, the woman claims amnesia: Her last memory was of ordering the Uber cab. She does not know what happened in between until she woke up in bed. A medical examination, based on traces of semen, reveals that the Uber driver penetrated her unprotected, both vaginally and anally. The suspect is in custody for 47 days. In the indictment, the public prosecutor demands a prison sentence of 4 years and 10 years expulsion from the country.
Questioning becomes a test of patience
The 42-year-old Italian with no previous criminal record has to answer to the Dietikon District Court for desecration, kidnapping and other offences. Although the suspect was born in Zurich, he went back to Italy with his family when he was six and only returned to Switzerland when he was 21.
The questioning is carried out with an interpreter and obviously puts the court chairman Stephan Aeschbacher before a test of patience, because the extremely talkative accused does not answer questions clearly and repeatedly lapses into a difficult-to-understand mishmash of German and Italian.
The woman was sad and didn’t know where she wanted to go. He felt he had to protect her, he says. He didn’t realize she was drunk. They would have made friends. She touched and kissed him while driving. She went with him into the apartment of her own accord. There she undressed herself and sat naked on him. There was mutual contact.
However, the accused denies having penetrated vaginally and anally. He gives his strong Christian faith as the reason why nothing bad could have happened.
Between 1.44 and 3.4 per thousand
According to the prosecutor, blood was taken from the young woman the following day. Based on the back calculation, she had a blood alcohol level between 1.44 and 3.4 per mille when she arrived in Dietikon. She testified that she could not remember anything and took the position that it was impossible for her to imagine that she had told the accused that she was going home with him. According to the prosecutor, the woman’s amnesia is credible.
In her pleading, the defense attorney confirms an impression from the survey: The intelligence of the accused is demonstrably very low and close to a disability. She understands the young woman, who woke up in shock and panic in a strange apartment, which she described as “a mess”, and was overwhelmed by the situation. However, she was urged by colleagues to file a criminal complaint. It was consensual sex between two adults.
Immediately before ordering the Uber taxi, the woman felt lonely and abandoned at home and felt a need for physical closeness. She tried to reach two colleagues to win them over to intimacy. With one she made a video call, the content of which was clearly sexual. But the colleague could not meet her. She then took the initiative towards the Uber driver. Defense attorneys are asking for a full acquittal.
In his closing words, the accused talks in a confused and endless manner, so that Judge Aeschbacher gives him an ultimatum. Finally, Aeschbacher says: “Five, four, three, two, one, finito!” The accused continues to speak anyway.
“By far” no hardship case of expulsion from the country
After several hours of deliberation, the district court reached its verdict: a prison sentence of 36 months for desecration. In view of the accused’s criminal record, this is partly due to the fact that he has to serve one year, and the rest is conditionally postponed. For the kidnapping, which was only “a necessary action for the main offence”, there is a separate conditional fine of 150 daily rates of 30 francs and a fine of 500 francs for sexual harassment in the morning. The accused is “by far” no personal hardship. He will be expelled from the country for 7 years.
Aeschbacher explains that it must have been unprotected vaginal and anal intercourse, which the accused denies, was clearly established on the basis of the forensic medical report. The essential question is therefore whether the woman was unable to resist and whether the accused was able to recognize this.
The court clearly affirms both. It rules out that the woman merely put forward the missing memory. There is no exaggeration tendencies and no reason for a false accusation. The convict, on the other hand, got tangled up in “inconsistent, contradictory and unrealistic” statements. His religiosity is not able to exonerate him. There are many religious people who are guilty of abuse.
Judgment DG200031 of January 31, 2022, not yet final.