SACRAMENTO — A former Anderson police officer facing life in
prison if convicted of raping a Millville woman he was taking to jail in May
2010 won’t be going to trial next month.
The Oct. 8 federal trial scheduled for Bryan Robert Benson,
29, has been postponed to March 25 at the request of his Gold River-based law
firm, Goyette & Associates.
The delay was granted after Benson’s attorneys said they
needed more time to review additional discovery evidence provided by federal
prosecutors.
Benson, who was released earlier this year from Sacramento
County Jail to the custody of his parents, spent a year in jail under a
controversial plea bargain he struck with Shasta County prosecutors in 2011.
But he was re-arrested in December after he was indicted by
a federal grand jury on charges he allegedly deprived the Millville woman of
her constitutional rights under color of law. He is now free on bond.
Circumstances of the alleged rape widely differ based on
prosecution and defense accounts.
Federal prosecutors claim Benson raped the woman while he
was taking her to the Shasta County jail in an unmarked patrol car after she
had been arrested on suspicion of DUI.
But his defense attorneys have claimed that the sex was
consensual.
Prosecutors said earlier this year that they had learned of
at least two earlier complaints filed against Benson showing a disturbing
pattern of behavior.
One complaint accused Benson of following women from a
pre-employment training agency into that agency’s parking lot while going
through his police training, prosecutors have said.
He also was accused of stopping a woman on a traffic
violation, but letting her off after she agreed to a lunch date. He then
allegedly went looking for the woman after she had stood him up for their date,
prosecutors said.
The alleged rape victim, who is not being identified by the
Record Searchlight because she’s a suspected sex crime victim, has filed a $10
million federal lawsuit against the city of Anderson and its police report in
connection with the purported rape.
In her lawsuit, she claims the city of Anderson is
responsible for the sexual assault because its policies, customs, practice and
inadequate supervision or training allowed it to happen.
The city has denied the charges.
Benson is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit because
he’s been fired from the police department and is bankrupt.
Electronic court documents show the attorneys representing
the alleged rape victim in the civil case took Benson’s deposition late last
month, but that he asserted his Fifth Amendment privilege against
self-incrimination.
“He refused to testify about anything to do with law
enforcement, to the point of refusing to testify about any conversations he had
with his father, a long-time sworn officer in the Redding Police Department
(now retired), about law enforcement,” according to a joint status report filed
earlier this month in U.S. District Court.