The woman says she was sexually assaulted based on her race inside a Westminster Walmart. Hetty Chang reports for the NBC4 News at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024.
An Orange County woman said she is traumatized after being sexually assaulted in a Westminster Walmart in what she also described as a hate crime.
The woman, 43-year-old Maribel Vergara, said that the suspect, who was identified as Aaro Aubrey Navies, grabbed her buttocks and then told her that he could do whatever he wanted because “You’re a Mexican, and you don’t have rights.”
Vergara, who typically carries pepper spray, said she didn’t have it on her to use it against the alleged assailant. Although Vergara primarily speaks Spanish, she says she understands English better than she speaks it and understood clearly what her attacker said.
She claimed he also made a vulgar gesture to her with his tongue.
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Vergara said, minutes after calling 911, officers came to the store and arrested Navies on charges of sexual battery and hate crime, a felony.
“We think of it as officers, ‘How would our mothers, grandmothers feel when officers got there?’ They showed compassion for her,” Cmdr. Michael Harvey with the Westminster Police Department said.”Like any other crime, we want to public to know this is not tolerated.”
Vergara said that her reason for speaking out is to prevent this man from targeting someone else in the future.
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She said that everyone has rights regardless of nationality.
