Former San Mateo officer charged with sexually assaulting 5 women

Noah Win chester is being held on $3.1 million bail. Noah Win chester is being held on $3.1 million bail. Photo: San Mateo Police Department Photo: San Mateo Police Department Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Former San Mateo officer charged with sexually assaulting 5 women 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

A former Peninsula police officer accused of sexually assaulting five females while on duty was arrested Thursday and charged with 22 felony offenses, the San Mateo County district attorney’s office said.

Noah Winchester, 31, targeted two of the females, including a 17-year-old, while working as a school officer in Sacramento for the Los Rios Community College District in 2013, officials said. After he was hired as a San Mateo police officer in 2015, he went on to sexually assault three other women on different occasions in the 10 months he was a member of the force, prosecutors said.

In the three most recent cases, which occurred between September and October, Winchester kidnapped and raped one woman, attempted to rape another woman after breaking into her motel room and sexually battered a third, according to San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe.

Winchester was charged with four counts of sexual battery, one count of kidnapping and two counts of digital penetration on the 17-year-old girl stemming from one of the 2013 attacks. He was also charged Thursday with kidnapping, making criminal threats, two counts of rape and four counts of forcible oral copulation on another woman in 2013.

The minor in Sacramento, a student at the community college, had reported the assault to law enforcement but no charges resulted, Wagstaffe said. Police referred the case to the school, which couldn’t corroborate the allegations. Wagstaffe said that with “the multiplicity of victims” and further evidence prosecutors now have a case.

Wagstaffe said all of the women were strangers to Winchester and that he used his authority as a police officer to commit the assaults.

“These were not just random people on the street,” Wagstaffe said. “They were people he had reason to contact as a law enforcement officer.”

The San Mateo Police Department said it immediately placed Winchester on indefinite leave when the first victim came forward Oct. 20. She had knowledge of a second victim being assaulted and persuaded her to come forward. The two had heard about a possible third victim, and investigators with the district attorney’s office tracked her down as well.

Detectives then began looking into Winchester’s background and uncovered the Sacramento case that had earlier been reported to police. The fifth victim was found through a post she wrote on Facebook about the assault.

The alleged assaults in San Mateo happened inside the motel, near the motel and near the Hillsdale Shopping Center, Wagstaffe said. The two in Sacramento were reported near the Los Rios campus.

Winchester resigned in February amid the investigation.

“While we respect the now former officer’s right to due process under the law and the presumption that he is innocent until proven guilty, we as a department cannot help but be appalled by the nature of these allegations,” the San Mateo Police Department said. “These allegations, if proven true, are a disgrace and wholly disavowed by this department and this city.”

In a statement released in May, Police Chief Susan Manheimer didn’t elaborate on the allegations but said that, if true, they were a “disturbing breach of the public trust” and that they shouldn’t reflect on the department or its officers.

Winchester, arrested as he was leaving his Stockton home Thursday morning, is being held on $3.1 million bail in a San Joaquin County jail. He is set to be arraigned Monday.

“The evil of what occurred speaks for itself,” Wagstaffe said. “He has truly betrayed the public’s trust.”

Kimberly Veklerov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kveklerov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kveklerov