Alleged victim in Fresno firefighter rape case used fake ID, attorney says

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- The attorney representing a Fresno firefighter is firing back after the arrest of Jeffrey Sanchez on charges of rape.

Sanchez has been a firefighter for close to eight years. His attorney says he has an impeccable past and did not commit any crime when a young woman came home with him from a bar last Thursday night.

According to his attorney this firefighter is an upstanding citizen, who is single and was just having a good time last week. After a few drinks the party continued at Sanchez's house and he insists, what happened there was not a crime.

Attorney Jeff Hammerschmidt says his client met a young woman at Martin's Bar in Old Town Clovis last week, and after a fun night of drinking and hanging out, Sanchez, the woman and a group of friends all ended up at his house.

"He did like her very much, so where it was going to go it was the first night they had met so they'd never met before, never seen each other out before to my knowledge," said Hammerschmidt.

What happened after this is where the versions of events become very different. Investigators claim Sanchez took the 19-year-old alleged victim to his room and attacked her.

Hammerschmidt won't talk about anything intimate that happened between the two, but he says it wasn't sexual assault or rape.

Sanchez didn't talk as he bailed out of jail Friday, but Tuesday his attorney said the young woman was misleading from the start and not only used a fake ID to get in the bar, but also gave him a phony name.

Hammerschmidt said, "It appears that she represented to Jeff Sanchez that she was the person on the ID that she used. She actually used another name other than her own name the entire night with him."

Fresno County sheriff's detectives are waiting for evidence at the scene to be processed. They arrested Sanchez hours after the alleged crime and took blood and other DNA samples from both the accuser and Sanchez.

The district attorney has still not received the case. Hammerschmidt says he is waiting to also review witness accounts as he too investigates this case.