BREAKING
NEWS
Charges Dropped in ArcLight Rape Case
Thursday, May 5, 2011 | Updated 4:35 PM PST
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A Los Angeles police officer patrols Los Angeles streets.
Citing insufficient evidence, Los Angeles County prosecutors declined to file charges against a Reseda man arrested on suspicion of raping a woman in the parking lot of the ArcLight movie theater in Hollywood.
In a charge evaluation worksheet publicly released today, Deputy District Attorney Rouman Ebrahim wrote that "there is a reasonable doubt as to whether the alleged crimes occurred."
Chris Anthony Cardoza, 23, was released Wednesday on $100,000 bail following his arrest Tuesday by Los Angeles police.
He told authorities that he and the woman had consensual sex in his car and that he left after she got out of the vehicle and began talking to another man, according to the document.
A security guard saw the two "talking to each other in a friendly manner," then saw the man leave after a second man approached and joined their conversation, according to the charge evaluation worksheet.
The woman -- who said she was forcibly carried into a car and raped by two men about 3 a.m. Sunday --"admitted to being extremely intoxicated" and never told the security guard or the other man that she talked with that she had been assaulted, according to the document.
