The case against a Santa Barbara attorney accused of raping an intoxicated woman will move forward after the alleged victim recounted her chilling encounter in court.
Andrew Alire, a former Santa Barbara County deputy public defender who opened his own practice, was arrested in March 2025 and pleaded not guilty to felony charges of rape of a drugged victim and oral copulation by intoxication.
Following a preliminary hearing Tuesday, Judge Stephen Foley found sufficient evidence for the prosecution to move forward, The Santa Barbara Independent reported. Alire is scheduled to be re-arraigned next month on those charges and an additional felony count of rape by force.
He is currently free on $100,000 bail.
The alleged victim, identified in court as Jane Doe, described becoming abruptly impaired while drinking with Alire at a downtown Santa Barbara bar in January 2025. She testified that she repeatedly asked to go home but ended up at his house, where she accused Alire of assaulting her and pushing her down when she tried to sit up.
“I said over and over that I didn’t want to go home with him,” she testified about her alleged appeals to an Uber driver to drop her off at another address.
Doe, who had traveled from Connecticut to visit a friend in Santa Barbara, told the court she connected with Alire through a meetup app on Jan. 14. She said she used apps to meet people while traveling and made it clear that she wanted a platonic connection rather than a sexual encounter. Their messages were introduced as evidence.
After Doe mentioned enjoying darts, the pair arranged to meet at the James Joyce bar. “I was having fun,” she testified.
After buying a drink and returning from the bathroom, she said, her condition changed suddenly.
“It just felt like a wave of being really tired, really fast,” Doe testified. “I couldn’t keep my balance. I just felt really not like myself.”
She believed she had consumed multiple drinks but could not recall the exact number.
Surveillance footage from the bar that played in court showed Doe struggling to remain steady and pushing Alire’s hand off her shoulder. About an hour after they arrived, she could be seen resting her head on the bar.
Doe said she gave Alire a friend’s address so he could arrange an Uber to take her there. She expected to leave alone, but Alire joined her and proposed going to his house to play darts, she testified.
“I started telling the driver that I didn’t want to go with the defendant,” she said, “and asking if he could take me somewhere else.”
When they arrived, Doe said she begged the driver to let her remain in the car. According to her testimony, the driver told her to get out because he had another passenger to collect.
Inside the house, she said, Alire guided her into a bedroom with a hand on her back and shoulder and encouraged her to lie on the bed. She remembered being fully dressed when he left the room.
Her next memory, she testified, was of Alire on top of her. Her jeans and underwear had allegedly been removed, and her shirt and sweatshirt were pushed up.
“I tried to sit up, and he kind of pushed me back down with his hands on my shoulders, and my neck and my arms,” Doe said.
Asked to rate the force he used on a scale of one to 10, Doe gave it a seven. Photographs documenting injuries to her body were also admitted into evidence.
Doe said she got dressed as soon as Alire left the room.
“I was really tired, but felt scared and, like, a lot of adrenaline,” she testified. “I just wanted to leave.”
She said Alire insisted on driving her home. She eventually agreed but gave him a different address to keep him from learning where she was staying.
During the ride, she testified, he repeatedly questioned her about how intoxicated she had been.
“He kept asking me if I remembered how drunk I was and how embarrassing I was, and if I was embarrassed at the things that I had done,” she said.
When Alire suggested seeing her again, Doe gave a noncommittal answer.
“I just wanted to get out of the car,” she testified.
Back at her friend’s apartment, she said she showered five times before falling asleep. She described pain in her wrist and shoulders, soreness in her throat and genital area, and bleeding she noticed later that day.
Doe arranged testing for sexually transmitted diseases and other preventive care.
She also called a national sexual assault hotline, which referred her to Standing Together to End Sexual Assault, a Santa Barbara organization known as STESA.
She subsequently reported the alleged assault to police and underwent a forensic sexual assault examination.
“I was really embarrassed,” she testified about coming forward. “I was worried about my name being public and my career.”
During cross-examination, Alire’s defense attorneys questioned Doe about when she first told investigators specific details, including her pleas to the Uber driver, being pulled from the car and being pushed onto the bed. They also asked about her weight, drinking habits and use of meetup apps.
Doe acknowledged that some details were absent from her initial police interviews. She said the first officer requested a broad account and explained that detectives would ask more detailed questions later.
Asked how her memory compared with when she first reported the incident, she described it as “better, much more sharp.”
Alire remains actively licensed to practice law. His State Bar profile carries a consumer alert notifying the public of the criminal accusations.
Separately, another woman previously told the Santa Barbara Independent that she experienced memory loss and disorientation during an encounter with Alire that she considered inconsistent with how much alcohol she had consumed. She recalled a sexual encounter but said she could not remember its full extent.
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