Editor’s note: The following may be disturbing for some readers.
SAN DIEGO — The man charged with kidnapping and forcible rape of a woman inside a home in the Palm City neighborhood appeared before a judge Friday afternoon for the first time in connection with the case.
Rafael Banda, 44, is also linked to a suspicious death investigation after a dead woman’s body was found inside of his home, but no charges have been filed in connection with that investigation.
“I’m setting this case as no bail,” the judge said during the court proceeding Friday.
Banda retained private counsel and his arraignment was postponed. He appeared in custody inside the courtroom with the judge ordering the media to blur his face.
In the courtroom Friday, the prosecutor discussed details of the case, some very graphic and disturbing.
According to the prosecutor, the victim had known Banda for about a week prior to the alleged kidnapping. She said they were in an intimate, but not sexual relationship and she wanted to distance herself after she said she noticed he was displaying irrational behavior. She said she went to his home on Tuesday to grab some of her items she left at his house when he displayed a gun.
The prosecutor says Banda told the victim that she owed him money.
“He then tries to extort her, makes her call her daughter. During that call, her daughter hears what she believes is her mother being beaten up,” deputy district attorney Joshua Brisbane said.
He said the daughter did not know where her mother was. The daughter’s age was not revealed.
After, Brisbane said Banda pistol-whipped the woman, showed her a dead female’s body inside the home and asked her to help dismember the body. The details were not discussed in the courtroom.
The prosecutor says Banda ordered the victim to sit on his lap and raped her on an air-mattress next to the dead body. According to the prosecutor, the next morning, he forced the victim to make him breakfast, then choked her and hit her in the shower. The prosecutor said the woman made her escape when Banda had allegedly passed out on drugs.
The woman left and flagged down a driver to call 911, and she reported what happened.
Since Banda has two prior strikes, he is facing 35 years to life, according to Brisbane.
“There was a dead body in there, so clearly the totality of the circumstances, plus his criminal history shows that he’s a violent person and that he’s a danger to the community,” Brisbane said.
The Medical Examiner’s Office has sealed the documents in regard to the dead woman’s body found inside the home. A cause of death or name has not yet been released. If charges were to come for Banda from this case, it would be additional charges.
According to online court records, Banda has at least more than a dozen other criminal cases dating back to 1999.
Banda’s arraignment is now set for Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. at the South Bay Courthouse in Chula Vista.
