Dela Cruz was dispatched in his All Yellow Taxi van to pick up the South Bay woman on July 28, 2005, and drive her to her job folding napkins at a local restaurant.

The journey was interrupted by a five-minute stop in a strip mall parking lot at Rosecrans Avenue and Hawthorne Boulevard, where Dela Cruz parked the van in a secluded spot, got into the back seat and raped the 28-year-old woman, Deputy District Attorney Jodi Link said during opening statements.

Dela Cruz's attorney, Lola McAlpin-Grant, said the woman began removing her clothes and stood up, forcing Dela Cruz to pull over and check on her. She said they had sex until he stopped it.

When he dropped her off at work, she hugged him, McAlpin-Grant added.

McAlpin-Grant said the jury will hear how he had driven her three to four times before, sometimes in his Ford Crown Victoria, and she had given him a picture of herself.

Identifying information about the woman, including what city she lived in and where she worked, are being withheld to protect her privacy.

The woman's mother told the jury of three men and nine women that her daughter was born deaf, is developmentally disabled and suffers from cerebral palsy and a seizure disorder.

She does not speak, and communicates only with gestures her mother described as "homemade" sign language.

The mother, who sought so much education on how to care for her disabled daughter that she became a para-educator herself, said her daughter has many limitations. She can't cook, can barely dress and groom herself or read and write beyond a word at a time.

In addition, her daughter is shy, often gesturing "private" when she wants to get dressed by herself, her mother said.

Despite her modesty, her daughter is friendly and carries fists full of photographs in her purse so she can show people who she is and where she's been, her mother said.

Nearly six years ago, her daughter got the restaurant job and her mother arranged for transportation to her work by Access Paratransit, which runs vans for disabled people.

If the company can't make the pickup or if the passenger is late, it subcontracts with All Yellow Taxi.

Dela Cruz drove the woman to work that day.

She worked all day and when she got home, her mother said she could tell she was "shocked, angry and agitated."

She slammed the door and pushed her mother into the bathroom, away from her 3-year-old niece who was there.

Her mother tearfully told the jury with words and gestures what her daughter told her: "The man put his penis inside me."

"Then she hit the door and said, 'Bad man,' " her mother testified.

She told her mother how he pushed her and she tried to push him back while gesturing "no" and shaking her head.

"Hurt me. Bleed. Hurt," the girl told her mother, then pointed to her groin area.

Link showed jurors the woman's crayon drawing of her assailant, depicting his black curly hair and mustache. She also picked him out of a police photo lineup by pounding her fists on his picture, Link said.

The woman, with the aid of two gesture and sign language interpreters, is expected to testify today.

By Denise Nix, Daily Breeze
http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/articles/2291331.html