BANNINGÂ – A 40-year-old Banning man accused of raping two women who visited his home on separate occasions when they were intoxicated, as well as molesting a 12-year-old girl, will ask a judge Wednesday to lower his bail in order that he might possibly get out of jail while awaiting trial.
Steven Roy McElroy was arrested last week following a Banning Police Department investigation into the alleged assaults on the women, which occurred in 2015 and 2016.
McElroy is charged with two counts each of rape and aggravated assault, and one count each of lewd acts on a minor and sexual battery of a child.
McElroy was arraigned on the charges connected to the girl roughly a year ago, pleading not guilty. He was released from custody at that time after posting a $55,000 bond.
However, Banning police detectives received information afterward concerning two women, identified in court documents as “A.S.” and “M.H.,” who alleged they had been sexually assaulted on different occasions in 2015 and 2016.
McElroy made his initial court appearance on those charges Thursday, at which time his public defender submitted a motion to Riverside County Superior Court Judge Mark Singerton asking for a bail-setting conference to determine whether the $500,000 bond requirement now in place is justified.
Singerton scheduled the hearing for Wednesday morning at the Banning Justice Center. He set McElroy’s arraignment for April 7. The defendant is being held at the nearby Smith Correctional Facility.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit filed by Detective Jack Loera, A.S. and M.H. came forward after hearing about the charges related to the 12-year-old girl.
Loera said A.S. alleged she was attacked sometime in 2015, though she couldn’t identify a specific date due to faded memory and other unstated issues.
The woman told the detective that she had engaged in consensual sex with the defendant on prior occasions and didn’t think authorities would take her seriously regarding the alleged rape, so she waited for M.H. to make her allegations before disclosing her own, according to the affidavit.
It said that A.S. recalled having a fight with her husband and asking McElroy for help, prompting him to take her out for drinks at a pub near his residence, which was then in Grand Terrace.
The woman and McElroy returned to his house later that night, and the victim told him she “was intoxicated and tired and wanted to go to sleep, at which time McElroy told her she could lay down on his bed in his room,” the affidavit stated.
Loera said the woman alleged that McElroy climbed on top of her, and despite being told “No! and fighting him,” the defendant pinned her arms down, pulled off her pants and forcibly sexually assaulted her.
M.H. told the detective that she was briefly rented a room from the defendant in April 2016, and after the two of them went out for drinks, she returned home “intoxicated (and) went to her room and laid down,” according to the affidavit.
“The (victim) said moments later McElroy walked into her room uninvited,” court papers stated. “She told McElroy, `No, Steve, go to your room.”’
However, the defendant forced himself on her, raping her “for approximately three to four minutes,” in spite of her shouting “‘no’ at least six times,” Loera wrote.
The alleged molestation of the 12-year-old girl occurred on Dec. 26, 2021, in Banning, but the circumstances and the child’s relationship to the defendant, if any, were not disclosed in court documents.
McElroy has no documented prior felony convictions.
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CNS-03-20-2023 18:01
