A Vancouver man who is accused of sexually assaulting a woman in September 2003 in a park near downtown Vancouver appeared Friday in Clark County Superior Court.
Jacob Gabriel Dimas, 38, is facing one count of first-degree rape after DNA taken from a sexual assault test kit came back as a match to him in April 2020, according to a probable cause affidavit.
Judge Emily Sheldrick set Dimas’ bail at $300,000, and he is scheduled to be arraigned Aug. 13.
The woman was walking to a friend’s house from a downtown bar and cut through Memory/Mill Plain Park across from Officers Row. She said she could feel someone behind her, the affidavit states.
A man, later identified as Dimas, swept her legs out from under her, making her fall face-first to the ground. She told police he threatened her with a knife in order to get her to stop screaming while he assaulted her. She recognized his voice as the same man who asked her for a cigarette outside of the bar, according to the affidavit.
He stole her purse and ran away, the affidavit states. Police and a K-9 searched the area for a man matching the description the woman provided, but they did not find him.
The woman went to a hospital for a sexual assault examination and test kit, and the results from the kit came back in March of 2019, the affidavit states. In April 2020, the Washington State Crime Lab found the DNA from the kit matched Dimas. The woman said she did not know him, according to the affidavit.
An arrest warrant was issued for him in February, and police said his whereabouts were unknown at that time.
