An Orange County woman in a newly-filed lawsuit alleges that an Anaheim police officer raped her at her home several months after the officer spotted her at an In-N-Out restaurant and ran her license plate number in order to get in touch with her. Anaheim Officer Carlos Romero — who is currently off-duty in the midst of an internal department investigation and is facing a criminal charge for the alleged misuse of a DMV database — is now also facing public allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman, according to a civil rights lawsuit filed this week at the federal courthouse in Santa Ana. The woman — who is identified in the suit by the pseudonym Jane Doe — was in a drive-thru line at an In-N-Out restaurant near Orange Avenue and Brookhurst street on May 19, 2023 when she saw Officer Romero stare at her and smile, according to the civil complaint.
The next day, the woman received a “friend request” on Facebook from Romero, who confirmed that he had spotted her at the fast-food restaurant and had used her license plate information to locate her name, according to the complaint. “Romero asked plaintiff for her phone number and plaintiff gave it to him,” the complaint reads. “Plaintiff figured it couldn’t hurt to be in the good graces of a police officer in the area.
” The woman made clear to Romero she wasn’t interested in a romantic relationship, according to the complaint. Romero allegedly texted the woman while he was on duty and occasionally came .
