SLO County barbershop owner accused of raping women and girls to face trial, judge rules

Editor’s note: This story describes sexual assault.

One of the men accused of raping multiple women in San Luis Obispo County will face trial, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Nathan “Nate” Abate, owner of Cardinal Barbershop in Atascadero, was charged with oral copulation of a person under the age of 18 and rape by use of drugs — both felonies — on Jan. 19.

The business owner posted his $500,000 bond and pleaded not guilty to the crimes during his arraignment the following day.

As of Tuesday, the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office had added more charges, resulting in a total of five charges under three counts.

According to court documents, Abate is charged with rape by force on the first count, rape of an intoxicated person on the second count and oral copulation of a minor, rape by force, and rape of an intoxicated person on the third.

There is also an addition of evidence code 1108, meaning evidence of previous sexual assaults will be included in the case.

The alleged crimes occurred against three separate women between 2008 and 2012, witnesses said in Tuesday’s court hearing. Two of the alleged victims were minors.

The San Luis Obispo Police Department and San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office began investigating Abate and Julian Contreras, former owner of Kin Coffee in downtown San Luis Obispo, in April 2022 after several criminal allegations came to light on social media.

Since that time, more than 30 women have come forward on social media with stories of sexual assault or harassment by the two men sometime between 2008 and 2021.

In total, the prosecution said, there are at least seven victims who say they have been assaulted by Abate whose accounts may be included in evidence. Some of those victims were also allegedly assaulted by Contreras.

So far only Abate has been charged. He’s represented by defense attorney Scott Taylor.

The Sheriff’s Office has obtained an arrest warrant for Contreras and detectives are actively trying to locate him, the agency said in a news release announcing Abate’s arrest.

Taylor, a San Luis Obispo police detective and a Sheriff’s Office detective all confirmed during Tuesday’s court hearing that Contreras has fled to Mexico.

On Tuesday, Superior Court Judge Michael Frye ruled there was sufficient evidence for Abate to face trial.

Social media post sparks sexual assault investigation

San Luis Obispo police Det. Brent Inglehart, one of the first detectives on the case, took the witness stand on Tuesday.

He testified that he received several voicemails from woman alleging Abate and/or Contreras had assaulted them, but only a few had left callback numbers to follow-up on.

The detective first spoke with Jane Doe 7, who recounted an alleged sexual assault by Abate and Contreras. That Jane Doe referred him to Jane Doe 1, who first posted on Instagram about her alleged rape by Abate.

Jane Doe 1, whose case is count one against Abate, told Inglehart that she had dated Abate on and off consensually around 2011 or 2012, the detective said.

The first sexual encounter between Abate and Jane Doe 1 was consensual as long as Abate used a condom, Inglehart said.

After that encounter, Inglehart said, Jane Doe 1 discovered Abate had taken off the condom during intercourse without Jane Doe 1’s consent — a practice known as stealthing. While this practice is not a criminal offense in California, Inglehart noted, it is a civil offense.

Toward the end of her relationship with Abate, Jane Doe 1 and her friend attended a party at Contreras’ house in San Luis Obispo.

There, Inglehart testified, Jane Doe 1 drank alcohol and smoked marijuana with other party goers.

Jane Doe 1 told Inglehart she already felt “high” from the marijuana when she, her friend, Abate and Contreras went into a bedroom to smoke more.

According to Inglehart, Jane Doe 1 remembers seeing Contreras thrusting on top of her friend as her friend laid motionless on the bed.

This gave Jane Doe 1 a “panic attack,” Inglehart said, and she began hyperventilating.

As Abate took his pants and underwear off, Inglehart said, he told Jane Doe 1 to calm down. Then Abate sexually assaulted her, the women said.

Jane Doe 1 told Inglehart she wanted to say no and she wanted to move, but her body couldn’t.

Jane Doe 1 told The Tribune she tested positive for chlamydia after she stopped seeing Abate and believes he gave her the STD.

Inglehart also spoke with Jane Doe 4, who alleged Abate and Contreras raped her in 2013.

At the time, Jane Doe 4 was new to the area attending college, the detective said.

She told Inglehart that the two men messaged her on Facebook, citing their mutual friends on the platform.

The men asked Jane Doe 4 to meet and she agreed, Inglehart said, so they picked her up and went to a house near downtown San Luis Obispo.

At some point, Inglehart said, the conversation went from casual chatting to the men asking if the woman wanted to have a threesome.

Jane Doe 4 told the two men she did not think she would like a threesome, Inglehart said, and became very uncomfortable.

The men responded with something to the effect of, “How do you know you don’t like it if you don’t try it?” Inglehart said.

That’s when Abate placed his penis in Jane Doe 4’s mouth and Contreras took off her pants and underwear and began raping her from behind, the detective said.

The men traded positions a few times and Jane Doe 4 was in shock and remained quiet, Inglehart said.

She asked the men for a ride home then blocked them from her accounts on social media and her phone, Inglehart said. She didn’t speak of the encounter again until she saw Jane Doe 1’s social media posts and the several posts that followed.

Abate’s lawyer argued that Jane Doe 1’s case was “a case of regret.”

She never verbalized that she did not want to have intercourse, Taylor said, and waited for a decade to come forward with the allegations.

He also said that there was no physical corroboration of Jane Doe 1’s story, noting that the woman’s friend did not want to be contacted by police and medical records regarding Jane Doe 1 being tested for a sexually transmitted disease could not be found.

San Luis Obispo County Deputy District Attorney Kimbery Dittrich responded that consent does not have to verbal.

“The defendant — it’s obvious — continued to forcefully have intercourse with her despite her having a panic attack, and he knew because he was telling her to calm down and be quiet,” she told the judge. “A reasonable person under that situation would know that she was unwilling or unable to engage in sexual intercourse.”

SLO County man gave minors alcohol, raped them, DA says

Two of the counts with which Abate has been charged pertain to alleged rapes against 14-year-old girls.

Sheriff’s Office Det. James Wyatt testified he spoke with Jane Doe 2 in December 2022.

She told Wyatt she was 14 in 2009 when she and a 14-year-old friend, Jane Doe 3, were friends with Abate and Contreras.

They were excited that older men showed interest in them, the detective said.

Abate and Contreras were in their early 20s at the time.

One night, Wyatt said, the two girls sneaked out of their homes to attend a party at Contreras’ home in Santa Margarita.

A friend drove them to the party, the detective said, and Jane Doe 2 drank tequila and vodka at the house.

At 14, Wyatt said, Jane Doe 2 said she was a “lightweight” and was blacking out at various parts of the night. She said she asked Abate for a glass of water, and he gave her a glass of vodka instead.

After sipping the vodka thinking it was water, Wyatt said, Jane Doe 2 told Abate she felt sick.

She told Wyatt that Abate then guided her down a hallway into a bedroom.

There was another person in the bedroom, Wyatt said, but Jane Doe 2 did not know who it was because of her level of intoxication.

According to Wyatt, Jane Doe 2 remembers Abate turning on porn before she blacked out.

She woke up with Abate on top her raping her, Wyatt said.

Jane Doe 2 said she tried to fight back and squirm, but Abate’s body pinned her down and she felt “trapped.”

She blacked out again, and woke up alone without her pants or underwear, Wyatt said.

The girl hadn’t had sex before, Wyatt said, and she was bleeding from her vagina because of the encounter.

Jane Doe 2 found her friend and then called her mom to pick her up, the detective said.

Wyatt said Jane Doe 2’s mother tried to convince her daughter to report the alleged rape to law enforcement, but the girl was afraid of retaliation from the men.

The mother told Wyatt she was also a victim of sexual assault, and wanted to meet her daughter where she was at rather than pressure her to do something she wasn’t yet comfortable with.

Jane Doe 2’s mother seemed relieved when her daughter was finally ready to come forward, Wyatt said.

He said that the mother had found her daughter four days after the assault “sobbing and shaking,” thinking that she may have been drugged at the party and was having flashbacks of Abate raping her.

Taylor repeated multiple times that the mother had not gone to law enforcement about what happened to her daughter, to which Wyatt responded that the mother was supporting her daughter the way the girl wanted support.

Jane Doe 3, also said she was assaulted by Abate and Contreras when she was 14, Wyatt said.

The incident is alleged to have happened at the same house as Jane Doe 2’s rape, but at another time.

The first time Wyatt spoke with Jane Doe 3, Wyatt said, she wanted to talk but was still “traumatized” by the incident and asked to talk at a later time with her therapist present, which she did in the following weeks.

Jane Doe 3 told Wyatt that the two men picked her up from Paso Robles High School.

While in the car, the men brought up sex and suggested possibly having a threesome together, Wyatt said.

The 14-year-old didn’t like conflict, she told Wyatt, and thought it would be easier to say yes than no.

She told Wyatt she didn’t want to see what was going to happen to her and asked the men to put her in a blindfold.

According to the detective, the rape that Jane Doe 3 described was similar to the one described by Jane Doe 4, with the men trading positions.

Jane Doe 6 was also raped by Abate and Contreras when she was 14, Wyatt said. Her story is similar to Jane Doe 2’s, only the porn shown depicted the rape of Jane Doe 3, the detective said.

Jane Doe 3 did not know she was being recorded, Wyatt said.

Wyatt noted that other witnesses had told him underage girls regularly attended parties hosted by Abate and Contreras.

Jane Doe 6’s rape case against Abate did go to through the court system in 2012, Taylor noted, but it was pleaded down to misdemeanor false imprisonment.

Taylor noted that Jane Doe 6 allegedly said she did not cooperate with law enforcement because she wanted to protect Contreras.

Taylor alleged the 14-year-old Jane Does could have talked with one another before speaking to law enforcement, especially since one asked to speak to law enforcement at a later time.

Wyatt said it made sense for a sexual assault victim to want mental health support at an interview like that and did not think the three Jane Does were influencing each other’s stories.

Taylor then asked Wyatt to confirm that he had not been able to corroborate the stories of the alleged victims mentioned above.

“It depends on how you define corroboration,” Wyatt responded. “I’ve spoken with several young women who describe similar incidents, who describe your client as being party to those incidents and who sexually assaulted them. So in my mind that counts as corroboration. Do I have physical evidence? I do not. I wish I did.”

Taylor added that law enforcement has not found a video recording of any rape.

Wyatt responded there had only been one electronic device seized so far, and the Sheriff’s Office does not know where to search for such a video recording at the moment.

Before the judge’s ruling, Taylor argued there was not any physical evidence in the case and noted that accusations — other than the one in 2012 — were not made until a decade later following a “social media firestorm.”

Frye ultimately ruled against Abate, whose new arraignment is set for Sept. 7.

Abate’s lawyer has filed a motion to dismiss the case, alleging the cases have exceeded the statute of limitations. That will also be heard Sept. 7.

Earlier in the hearing, Dittrich told Frye the District Attorney’s Office would no longer be offering Abate any more plea deals as his legal team has not responded to any of the agency’s offers. The negotiation process may restart if the defense makes an offer first, she said.

How to get help

If you or someone you know are a survivor of sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 800-656-4673. The hotline offers a range of free services including confidential support from a trained staff member, help finding a local health facility, legal and medical advice and referrals for long-term support.

If you or someone you know are a survivor of domestic violence, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233. The hotline offers a range of free services including confidential support from a trained staff member, help finding a local health facility, legal and medical advice and referrals for long-term support.

Survivor support and resources are also available through Lumina Alliance at luminaalliance.org or their Crisis and Information Line at 805-545-8888.