Jane Doe Testifies in Rape Case Against Santa Barbara Attorney

Warning: This article contains descriptions of sexual assault.

A woman who accused Santa Barbara attorney Andrew Alire of rape testified at his preliminary hearing Tuesday that she repeatedly asked to go home after becoming severely impaired at a downtown bar, pleaded with an Uber driver not to leave her at Alire’s house, and later awoke to Alire sexually abusing her.

Identified in court as Jane Doe, the woman described trying to sit up and turn away during the alleged assault, only to be pushed back down. She discussed the helplessness and pain she felt that night as well as subsequent fear and shame. “I was really embarrassed,” Doe testified about reporting the incident to police. “I was worried about my name being public and my career.”

Alire was arrested in March 2025 and pleaded not guilty to felony rape of a drugged victim and oral copulation by intoxication. A former Santa Barbara County deputy public defender who later opened a private practice, he is out of custody on $100,000 bail. During Tuesday’s hearing, Alire rocked and swiveled in his chair and periodically smiled at Doe on the witness stand. Both were accompanied in court by supporters.

A second woman previously told the Independent that during a separate outing with Alire she “experienced a level of memory loss and disorientation” that was “inconsistent with the amount of alcohol I had consumed.” She recalled sexual contact but was “unable to remember the full extent of what occurred.”

Doe testified that she had traveled from Connecticut to Santa Barbara in January 2025 to visit a friend. When he left town for work, she stayed at his downtown apartment to care for his puppy. 

While eating dinner alone on January 14, Doe exchanged messages with Alire through a meetup app before moving their conversation to text. She testified that she uses apps to meet people while traveling and made it clear to Alire that she was looking for friendship rather than a sexual encounter. Their text exchange was admitted into evidence.

The two headed to The James Joyce after Doe mentioned enjoying darts. “I was having fun,” Doe recalled about the beginning of the evening. She remembered buying one drink, but soon after returning from the bathroom, experienced an abrupt change. “It just felt like a wave of being really tired, really fast,” she said. “I couldn’t keep my balance. I just felt really not like myself.” Doe believed she had another drink but said her memory began to break up around that point.

Prosecutor Sarah Barkley played portions of surveillance footage from the bar, which showed Doe growing unsteady on her feet. At one point, Alire put his hand on Doe’s shoulder, and she pushed it off. Near the end of the footage, just over an hour after the pair had arrived, Doe can be seen resting her head on the bar.

Doe said Alire offered to order her an Uber to her friend’s apartment. She gave him the address and expected to ride alone, she said, but he joined her and suggested going to his house to play more darts. “I started telling the driver that I didn’t want to go with the defendant,” she testified, “and asking if he could take me somewhere else.”

When they stopped at Alire’s house, Doe said she begged to stay in the car. “I said over and over that I didn’t want to go home with him,” she said. The driver insisted that she leave because he had another fare to pick up, and Alire grabbed her arm and pulled her out, she said.

Alire guided her into a bedroom with his hand on her back and shoulder and nudged her onto a bed, Doe testified. She said she was fully clothed when he left the room. Her next memory, she said, was of Alire on top of her, her jeans and underwear removed and her shirt and sweatshirt 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,” she said, rating his level of force a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10. Photographs of injuries to her body were admitted into evidence. 

Later, after Alire left the room, Doe said she immediately got up and dressed. “I was really tired, but felt scared and, like, a lot of adrenaline,” she said. “I just wanted to leave.”

Alire insisted he drive Doe home, and she relented, but she gave him the wrong address so he wouldn’t know where she was staying, she said. During the drive, Alire repeatedly brought up her level of intoxication the previous night. “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 testified.

Alire told Doe he would like to see her again. She gave a noncommittal response. “I just wanted to get out of the car,” she said. Once back at the apartment, she took the puppy outside and showered five times before falling asleep. She described exhaustion, soreness in her throat and genital area, and pain in her wrist and shoulders. Later that day, she noticed some bleeding.

Doe scheduled STD testing and other preventive treatment, then contacted a national sexual assault hotline, which connected her with Santa Barbara–based Standing Together to End Sexual Assault, or STESA. Shortly thereafter, Doe decided to speak with police and underwent a forensic sexual assault exam.

Under cross-examination by Alire’s defense team, Doe was questioned about when she disclosed particular details — including her exchanges with the Uber driver, being pulled from the car, and being pushed onto the bed — to specific investigators. She was also asked to describe her body weight, frequency of drinking, and use of meetup apps.

Doe acknowledged that she had not discussed some particulars of the night in her earliest police interviews. She said the first officer she spoke with sought a general account and told her detectives would seek more information later. Asked about her recollection now compared with when she first reported the assault, she described it as “better, much more sharp.” 

Judge Stephen Foley determined at the end of the hearing that enough evidence exists against Alire for the case to proceed. Alire will be re-arraigned next month on his two existing charges, as well as an additional count of felony rape by force. He remains actively licensed, though a “consumer alert” on the State Bar website warns he has been accused of a crime.