29 women accused ‘Psycho Paul’ Flores of sexual misconduct, Kristin Smart records reveal
Warning: This article contains graphic information and descriptions of rape and sexual assault.
On the same day a San Luis Obispo Superior Court judge rejected two proposed rape charges against the man accused of murdering Cal Poly freshman Kristin Smart, records were unsealed by the court showing that 29 women told investigators of Paul Flores’ long history of sometimes violent sexual misconduct.
Four of the women claim they were raped after being drugged at bars and at Flores’ San Pedro home, according to the records.
Smart, 19, was last seen with Flores leaving a house party and heading to the Cal Poly residence halls on Memorial Day weekend 1996.
Her body has never been found, but investigators believe it was buried at the Arroyo Grande home of Paul Flores’ father, Ruben Flores, and “recently” moved, according to a San Luis Obispo County probation report exclusively obtained by The Tribune.
Paul Flores, 44, of San Pedro is charged with murdering Smart, while his 80-year-old father is charged with criminal accessory for his alleged role in hiding Smart’s remains. Both men have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Documents related to an unsuccessful prosecution attempt to charge Paul Flores with two counts of rape involving Los Angeles women were unsealed in court Wednesday at the request of the defense, due to a gag order that prohibits any of the parties involved from commenting on the case outside the courtroom.
In addition to information about Flores’ alleged sexual abuse of women, the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Statement of the Case — filed July 9 by deputy district attorney Christopher Peuvrelle and unsealed Wednesday — shows that investigators found video evidence of rape of an intoxicated person against Flores at his San Pedro home, as well as traces of human blood in disturbed soil underneath Ruben Flores’ home.
The collective comments of the dozens of women made in the filing align with what Peuvrelle told Superior Court Judge Craig van Rooyen on Wednesday is Flores’ modus operandi.
According to the prosecutor, Flores would linger at parties or bars near closing time, slip a drug into a woman’s drink and aggressively work to convince the impaired victim to come to his house, where the woman would wake up the next day in pain, with no recollection of how she got there.
Women cited in the filing will supposedly testify against Flores in an upcoming preliminary hearing.
4 women said they were raped by Paul Flores
When charges were filed against Paul and Ruben Flores in April, San Luis Obispo County District Attorney Dan Dow revealed that Flores is suspected of rape in Los Angeles County. He added that Smart is believed to have been killed during a rape or attempted rape.
Peuvrelle attempted unsuccessfully during Wednesday’s court hearing to additionally charge Flores in San Luis Obispo County with two alleged rapes from Los Angeles County. The judge rejected that effort, saying that evidence to support a rape allegation in Smart’s alleged murder was “thin,” and added that to file those charges locally was to “invite error” in the case.
But Peuvrelle’s unsealed “statement of the case” describes both survivors’ stories:
In one case from 2011, a female victim said Flores came to her aid when she got into an altercation outside a bar. She agreed to go home with him, and told investigators she didn’t remember if he gave her something to drink, but recalled going in and out of consciousness while he had sex with her.
The woman told him Flores was hurting her, she said, but he would not stop and instead forced a ball gag into her mouth. Her jaw and mouth hurt for several days afterward.
Investigators found the woman’s number in Flores’ seized cell phone and interviewed her in September 2020, the filing says.
Another woman was discovered through Flores’ phone, the filing says.
When asked by a Los Angeles Police Department detective whether she recalled meeting someone at a bar and ending up in another location without knowing how she got there, the woman began to cry and said, “yes,” according to Peuvrelle.
The woman recounted meeting Flores at a San Pedro bar in 2017, Peuvrelle wrote. She was 20 years old at the time.
Flores bought her drinks throughout the night, and she left a drink unattended while using the restroom, she said. After finishing the drink, she told investigators, she felt very drunk.
She remembered waking up to Flores having sex with her at his house and going in and out of consciousness. In a moment of clarity, she was able to call a friend, who couldn’t understand her before she again lost consciousness, the filing says.
She told investigators she did not consent to sex.
The Los Angeles Times previously reported that Los Angeles County officials had linked Flores to an alleged rape through DNA evidence, but the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office did not prosecute the case.
Peuvrelle’s court filing said that, in 2007, another woman was drinking at a Redondo Beach bar and left a drink unattended while smoking a cigarette. Next she remembered, she was in a strange house and was told by Flores to leave.
That woman later reported the incident to police, and a DNA test on semen found in her vagina came back positively attributed to Flores.
The case was rejected by Los Angeles County prosecutors, though the report does not say why. San Luis Obispo County officials received a police report about the case in 2013, the filing says.
In 2008, another woman was hanging out with friends and Flores at another bar when they decided to walk to her house with the friends, according to the filing. Flores came along, but convinced the woman to accompany him to his house briefly to feed his dogs, the woman told investigators.
While at his house, the woman says Flores offered her a glass of water and she doesn’t remember what happened next other than she became “involved in sexual activities” with Flores. She said she did not consent to sex.
While going in and out of consciousness, she said she recalled Flores forcing a ball gag in her mouth “so that his roommate wouldn’t hear anything.”
She did not report the attack to police even though she was left bleeding and in pain, but did tell close friends, the filing says.
Ex-girlfriend of murder defendant recalls turbulent relationship
One woman who spoke with investigators dated Flores for approximately two years in 2003-05, moving in with him in Lawndale, according to Peuvrelle’s filing. She told detectives that they met at a bar when she was 21 years old and he was 28.
She reported that Flores would “hang back and mill around” at bars and that he would drink alcohol every day. She added that alcohol changed him and he would have mood swings.
The woman recalled one incident when they were “rough-housing” and he took it too far and “snapped.” He held a butter knife to her throat, she said.
She said he was “unusually rough in their sex life.”
The woman also told investigators of a time when the couple passed a Kristin Smart billboard in Arroyo Grande and she asked Flores about the sign. He responded, “Oh, just some girl who went missing,” she said, and never mentioned any involvement.
The couple then went to Ruben Flores’ property on White Court in Arroyo Grande. The woman says she attempted to pick an avocado from the backyard of the property and was abruptly told to get out of the back yard by Paul and Ruben Flores.
The woman described Flores as a “creeper.”
The relationship ended after Flores got drunk one evening and hit her in the arm, the woman told investigators. She slept on the couch that night and moved out the next day, the filing says.
Dozens of women detail decades of alleged criminal behavior
In addition to the rape allegations, more than two dozen women told investigators of disturbing encounters with Flores dating back to his high school years.
Though some of the women are identified by name in the filing, The Tribune is only referring to them by their first names. Here’s what they told investigators:
- Christa was at a party in 1995 with a male friend when she noticed Flores stalking her with a “creepy stare.” She said it was a “common trait” of Flores to watch girls at parties. She told investigators that “most girls knew to stay away from Paul Flores.” After drinking alcohol and not feeling well, she had her friend walk her to a bedroom so she could lay down. Flores came into the room and asked her friend, “What can we do to her?” and asked the friend to hold her down so he could tie her up. He also allegedly told the friend he had a drug they could use to assault her and she wouldn’t remember. The friend pushed Paul out of the room. She said she believes Flores would have sexually assaulted her if he had the chance.
- Jessica said she worked with Flores at Garland’s Burgers in Grover Beach in the mid-1990s. She said he followed her home multiple times while flashing his headlights.
- Fatima also worked at Garland’s and said Flores sneaked up behind her and put his hands between her legs and groped her breasts. In another incident, he pinned her against a wall and rubbed an onion in her face, then pushed her to the floor and laid on top of her. She said she elbowed him in the face to get him off her.
- Tami said Flores routinely grabbed her breasts and buttocks without consent at Garland’s.
- Susan went to high school with Flores and said he once gave her and a cousin a ride. He began rubbing her inner thigh and when she told him to stop, she said, he flew into a “crazy rage,” saying “he should be able to get something from them in exchange for giving them the ride.” The girls jumped out of the truck when he went to park and hid in a portable toilet until he was gone.
- Carole said Flores would show up at high school parties drunk and make “disgusting sexual advances to the girls.” He would offer them money to take off their underwear, she said.
- Tamara said Flores followed her to a party in high school and kept touching her behind. He left when confronted by her male friends.
- Katrina said that, during Cal Poly’s Week of Welcome, Flores stroked her hair, repeating “how soft.” Next thing she knew, he was on top of her and had to be physically removed by her friends, she said.
- Jill described Flores as a stalker who would bang outside her window at Cal Poly.
- Katie said she was at a fraternity party when Flores pushed her up against a wall and a male friend had to intervene.
- Arienne said Flores harassed her at a party while “drunk and belligerent,” grabbing her arm to pull her away. She said people referred to Flores as “Psycho Paul.”
- Carina alleged that Flores regularly harassed women in the Cal Poly dorms and said he wanted to be called “Dahmer.”
- Balvindark called the police after Flores showed up to her dorm in the middle of the night insisting to be let in and banging on her door, she said.
- Pamela caught Flores looking at her in a bathroom. He fled when the two made eye contact, she said.
- Katie was pinned against a wall by Flores at a house party. She managed to push him away, she said.
- Tara was giving a back rub to another student when Flores barged in and said, “I’m Paul. Now give me a back rub,” she said. He became aggressive after she refused.
- Anna said Flores would knock on her dorm room window and call her and her roommate “bitches and whores.”
- Marianne said Flores entered her dorm room without her permission, stared at her and made her uncomfortable.
- Elizabeth said Flores forced his way into her dorm, demanding a hug and to stay the night. After she kicked him out, he pounded on the door for 10 minutes.
- Melinda said she took her friend to a party in 1996. The friends were separated for just 45 minutes when she witnessed a panicked Flores emerge from a bathroom, saying he needed help. Her friend was on the floor of the bathroom, covered in vomit and feces, with her pants ajar and foam coming from her mouth. “Like, what the hell, I was just talking to her an hour ago!” Melinda said of her friend, who was not previously intoxicated. As she helped clean her friend up, Flores repeatedly entered the bathroom saying he wanted to help. Melinda said her friend was on “death’s door” and she believes she was sexually assaulted.
- Tiare encountered Flores at a Long Beach bar in 2012. She admitted being “wasted,” but said she could have been drugged. She said she agreed to go home with Flores and woke up the next morning at a house feeling as though she’d been hit by a train. She was in such pain she couldn’t sit down, she said. She said, however, that sex could have been consensual.
- Carla was at a Redondo Beach bar when an intoxicated Flores came up and insulted her boyfriend. She walked outside and he followed, striking her twice in the rib cage and putting her right arm in a wristlock. Several men came out of the bar and beat Flores unconscious, she said.
- Alysia was bitten by Flores at a party in 1999, she said. He pinned her down to the ground and refused to get off until others intervened.
- Kenzi worked with Flores at Outback Steakhouse in 1998 and said she was “terrified” by him. She once gave him a ride and he refused to get out of the vehicle unless she went to his apartment so he “could show her something.” Once they got inside, he locked the door and turned off the lights, refusing to turn them back on. The woman was able to get out the door and leave.
- Roxanne worked with Flores at a Coca-Cola bottling plant when a TV special alerted everyone at the plant of the Smart case. Roxanne said Flores asked her out multiple times on day, and after she refused he approached her from behind and ran his hand up her leg to her buttocks. He walked away laughing, she said.
Paul Flores faces life in prison if convicted of Smart’s murder
Paul and Ruben Flores were arrested in connection with Smart’s disappearance on April 13 in San Pedro and Arroyo Grande, respectively, and the District Attorney’s Office announced the criminal charges against the men the following day.
Paul Flores and his father pleaded not guilty at their arraignment on April 19, when van Rooyen ordered Paul Flores be held without bail.
Paul Flores remains in San Luis Obispo County Jail, where he’s being held without bail for the remainder of proceedings.
His father was released from County Jail on April 22, hours after Superior Court Judge Craig van Rooyen significantly lowered his bail because he is not a flight risk or a risk to public safety.
Ruben Flores remains out of custody.
Paul Flores faces a sentence of 25 years to life if convicted of first-degree murder.
Ruben Flores faces a maximum of three years if convicted of the accessory charge, though it is not clear if that sentence would be served in County Jail or state prison.
A 12-day preliminary hearing, in which evidence will be presented, is set to begin Aug. 2.
This story was originally published July 16, 2021 at 8:03 AM with the headline "29 women accused ‘Psycho Paul’ Flores of sexual misconduct, Kristin Smart records reveal."
