SAN DIEGO – On July 11, a judge reduced six years from the 38-year prison term Daniel Dorado is serving for sexually assaulting four women whom he met in his closed La Jolla restaurant and a dating website.
Dorado, now 66, appeared on a video screen on July 11 and listened to his term reduction from High Desert State Prison in Susanville, which is in Lassen County in Northern California.
A 3-0 decision by the
4th District Courts of Appeal
ordered that Dorado be re-sentenced that said trial judge Charles Rogers made a mistake in calculating his sentencing, which originally was handed down at 40 years in 2020.
Rogers cut the 40 year term to 38 years in April 2023, after the appeals court recommended that he do so.
Deputy District Attorney Jessica Coto said Friday she believes Dorado may still have to serve 85% of the 32-year term. He has already served four years, so he could be paroled when he is in his 80s.
Coto asked San Diego Superior Court Judge Theodore Weathers to keep the 38 year sentence as it is. His attorney, Matthew Wechter, asked for a reduction to 32 years.
Wechter could not be reached for comment afterwards.
The appeals court ruling faulted Rogers for giving the maximum or upper term on three rapes by citing that it involved multiple victims. The opinion said Rogers already used that reason for giving the maximum for one victim, but he should not have used the same reason for the other victims.
Dorado was convicted by a jury of 20 sexual assault counts on Dec. 21, 2019. The guilty verdicts the appeals court cited was Dorado’s conviction of rape of an intoxicated person.
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The ruling stated that Rogers “imposed the upper term for those convictions based on the same fact that they involved multiple victims. It is this pair of sentence decisions that we conclude was improper.”
Dorado operated
Voce Del Mare
, an Italian restaurant on La Jolla Boulevard, from 2011 to March 28, 2018, the day he was arrested. It never re-opened.
The original case involved eight women who were aged 22-57, who said they were sexually assaulted in 2009, 2014, 2015, 2017, and 2018. Seven testified they were given alcoholic drinks that made them so intoxicated that they could not function.
Most of the women did not complain to police right away, but some of them did have rape exams within days of the incidents. Technicians did find some evidence of assault, but police could not find any date rape drug in Dorado’s possession.
The jury acquitted Dorado of three counts of assault on one victim and deadlocked on remaining charges involving three other victims. Those charges were later dropped.
Jurors also convicted him of six counts of oral copulation of an intoxicated person, four counts of digital penetration of an intoxicated person, and four counts of assault with intent to commit rape.
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When Rogers dropped the two years in 2023, he remarked that “there is zero evidence of acceptance of responsibility by Mr. Dorado.”
Dorado angrily clashed with Rogers at that 2023 hearing, saying “Nobody was ever unconscious and no one was ever intoxicated. I was cordial. I was respectful. I was kind. And I was a gentleman to every single one of these people.”
Dorado’s attorney argued that all the women consented to the sexual activity.
Most of the women testified they threw up after drinking alcoholic beverages supplied by Dorado. One woman said she woke up on the restaurant floor at 4 a.m. and discovered she wasn’t wearing clothing. She said she saw a nude Dorado eating a piece of cake on a plate on the floor at the time.
