A man who worked as a firefighter and paramedic at a Cal Fire station in Riverside County has been charged with raping three women, at least one of them while on duty — and the alleged victim in that incident says the agency shares responsibility for letting it happen.
The woman, listed as Jane Doe in a civil claim filed this week, said she arrived at Station 96 in Temecula just after 10 one evening last November to visit a man she’d met online.
According to the woman’s claim, David Renteria, 51, greeted her at the entrance and the two walked to a shed at the back of the property.
The woman’s attorney, David Ring, said his client had no reason not to trust Renteria: They were at a fire station after all, and there were others just inside.
“It sounds like a pretty safe situation to go over there in the first place,” Ring said. “It turned out not to be.”
She wouldn’t leave until sunrise the following morning, according to the civil tort claim, which often precedes a lawsuit.
Over roughly six hours on the evening of Nov. 6, the claim alleges, Renteria raped the woman repeatedly. At one point, according to the claim, he forced her to walk naked through the main station, photographed her in his firefighting gear and told her he would hurt her children if she tried to leave. Other firefighters, the claim alleges, were on duty inside the building the entire time — apparently oblivious.
“How did this happen?” said Ring. “How could this take place over the course of five or six hours without anyone intervening or knowing about it?”
The tort claim alleges the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and state officials share responsibility because they “negligently hired, supervised and retained” Renteria.
Renteria was arrested at his Placentia home April 24 following a four-month investigation by the Riverside County Sheriff’s Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force. He is charged with 12 felonies, including kidnapping and rape.
He faces a potential life sentence, and is being held at the Riverside County Southwest Detention Center with his bail set at more than $7 million. He did not enter a plea at a hearing Wednesday; his lawyer, Jacqueline Goodman, did not respond to a request for comment.
The Jane Doe civil claim states that Renteria forced himself on the alleged victim as soon as they entered a small work shed behind the Temecula station.
After forcing her to walk into the main fire station to be photographed, according to the civil claim, Renteria allegedly took the woman back to the shed and continued to sexually assault her.
She was not released until the sun began to rise around 5 a.m., according to the tort claim. Afterward, the claim says, she confided in a friend, a retired firefighter, who reported the incident to law enforcement.
Riverside County Deputy Dist. Atty. Sarah Crowley charged in court this week that Renteria raped at least three different women, including one victim he tied and bound. According to the criminal complaint, the first incident occurred sometime in October and the third took place on Nov. 20.
A Cal Fire spokesperson said Renteria was served with termination paperwork at the Riverside County Jail on May 4. The person declined to comment on the civil claim.
“CAL FIRE has not seen the lawsuit in question; however, we would not comment on pending litigation,” the agency said in a statement.
Ring said the duration of the alleged crime raises questions about the oversight of the station. Fire engines are typically staffed by three personnel, who commonly work 24-hour shifts, and are supervised by a fire captain, according to Cal Fire cooperative contracts.
Ring said a civil lawsuit is expected to be filed in early July. His team plans to focus heavily on how Renteria was hired, how he was supervised and whether there were prior complaints against him.
“He seemed awfully comfortable doing it,” Ring said. “He felt like he wasn’t going to get caught. This didn’t last five or 10 minutes.”
Riverside County authorities have said they believe there may be more cases and urged anyone with information to come forward.
The case is not the first time Cal Fire has faced questions about conduct at its stations and whether management failed to intervene.
In 2014, Battalion Chief Orville “Moe” Fleming, an instructor at the agency’s Ione training academy, murdered his 26-year-old lover. The subsequent California Highway Patrol investigation exposed a culture of on-duty drinking, sexual harassment of female cadets and cheating on promotion exams.
Fleming was sentenced to 16 years to life. Sixteen employees were disciplined. A supervising administrator who had received anonymous warnings about Fleming’s behavior was not disciplined, but was instead promoted to unit chief with a pay raise. An assistant chief was fired for allowing subordinates to drink on duty and standing by while subordinates were sexually harassed.
Four years after overhauling its professional standards program in the wake of that scandal, the state agency terminated nine firefighters and disciplined five others for drinking on duty during a six-week training session at the same academy.
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