A Griffith man was charged after police said he slapped, choked and sexually assaulted a woman in a car by a gas station after a night of bar hopping.
Julian Castillo, 26, is charged with rape, domestic battery resulting in serious bodily injury, domestic battery resulting in moderate bodily injury, sexual battery and strangulation.
He is being held without bail until Feb. 27 when it is reset at $5,000 cash surety.
The woman said she met Castillo around 9 p.m. Dec. 23 at the LiqGo, 404 N Broad St., in Griffith, and got in her car, before they went to a few bars.
Afterward, back at the gas station, he got a sex toy in the back seat, choked her, then sexually assaulted her with it. He had never hurt her in the past.
His demeanor felt like “anger and not like a fun thing,” she said.
She couldn’t breathe and thought at one point she blacked out.
Early on Dec. 24, they went to McDonald’s where she bought them food, then returned again to the gas station. Castillo went home.
The next day, she texted him Merry Christmas with a picture of her bruised face. He responded, apologizing.
“I’m genuinely so sorry I feel terrible. I let myself get carried away,” he said.
Cops also found a nearly four-hour secretly recorded conversation from Dec. 29, between the victim, her friend and Castillo.
Castillo agreed they were both “highly intoxicated” that night.
What would happen if I called the cops, the woman asked.
“I can say I would go to jail”, Castillo responded. “If it happens I’m not gonna fight it, but I don’t want to, nobody wants to.”
Castillo made an appointment to talk to detective, but never showed.
The woman told police she didn’t remember parts of the night, but recalled getting strangled and the sexual assault. She was “visibly upset” and “highly emotional,” police wrote.
License plate readers, medical records and gas station footage backed up her account, police said.
