Santa Ana -- A psychology professor said she has been told by Southern California prosecutors to plead guilty to a crime she didn't commit or they will move to have her jailed. Norma Esparza said Wednesday at a news conference that the Orange County district attorney's office was trying to get her to take a plea deal in connection with the murder of Gonzalo Ramirez, a man she says raped her after she met him at a bar 18 years ago as a student at Pomona College.

Esparza is one of four people charged with Ramirez's death. The other three defendants, including Esparza's ex-boyfriend Gianni Van, were indicted by a grand jury earlier this year.

"The principle of what they're asking me is to plead guilty to something that they know I am not responsible for," said Esparza, flanked by her husband and 4-year-old daughter outside the Santa Ana courthouse where on Thursday she was to face a pretrial hearing. "It would essentially be a lie."

Esparza, who previously testified about the case before a grand jury, declined to reveal details of the deal she said she was offered by prosecutors. She said they are pressuring her to enter a plea after getting her testimony.

The 39-year-old professor at an American university in Geneva said the case sends a chilling message to victims of sexual abuse who already fear coming forward to authorities.

Prosecutors declined to comment on the allegations but said defendants are often unhappy when they are charged with a crime.

"She wants to try this case with the media," said Susan Kang Schroeder, chief of staff for the district attorney's office. "We filed this case because we have the evidence to prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt."

Esparza's husband, Jorge Mancillas, told reporters that Esparza was a student in 1995 when she was raped by a man she met the night before. She later confided in Van about the rape and he "took matters into his own hands," Mancillas said.

One night, she was taken to a transmission shop and shown a bloodied Ramirez while someone waved a gun and threatened her, Mancillas said.

He said Van told her Ramirez was later released. She only learned he had been killed when she was interviewed by police weeks later, Mancillas said.

Prosecutors contend Esparza met Ramirez at a bar in 1995 and several weeks later pointed him out to Van. Van and two others followed Ramirez in a van, rear-ended him, and attacked and kidnapped him when he emerged from his car. Ramirez was killed and his body was dumped in Irvine, prosecutors said in a press release last year.

Mancillas said Esparza entered into a sham marriage with Van in 1995 under pressure from another one of the alleged participants when police began investigating Van's role in the murder.

As Van's spouse, Esparza would not have to testify against him, said Santa Ana police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna. When police learned the couple had divorced, they pursued an arrest warrant for Esparza, Bertagna said.

Prosecutors say Esparza was one of five people who killed Ramirez.