Bail Denied for Alleged French Valley Rapist

A judge today denied a bail reduction request for a man accused of raping a French Valley woman and leading law enforcement officers on a 100-mile chase across the desert before he was captured.

Bryan Mayo Tangas, 23, could face 10 years in prison if convicted of forcible rape, false imprisonment and reckless evading in connection with the alleged Feb. 11 attack.

To read the original report of what happened,

Riverside County Deputy Public Defender Greg Henderson submitted a motion to Superior Court Judge Elaine Johnson, seeking to have the defendant's $200,000 bail reduced by half.

Johnson denied the request after hearing arguments from both Henderson and Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Garcia.

The judge set a March 20 felony settlement conference date and remanded Tangas, who has been jailed at the in French Valley since his arrest, to the custody of sheriff's deputies.

According to sheriff's Sgt. Kevin McDonald, a French Valley woman called sheriff's dispatch shortly after 5 a.m. on Feb. 12 and alleged that a friend had sexually assaulted her at her home in the 32000 block of Dowling Court.

The woman told deputies that she managed to get away from Tangas, who drove around trying to find her, but couldn't by the time patrol officers arrived.

A deputy searching in the area of Buck and Borrell roads spotted the 6-foot-3, 180-pound defendant, who immediately sped away in his car on Rancho California Road toward Temecula, where he reached Interstate 15 and headed north, McDonald said.

Deputies turned the pursuit over to California Highway Patrol officers, who chased Tangas at high speed all the way to Barstow, according to McDonald.

He said officers deployed spike strips, disabling the defendant's vehicle, at which point he was arrested without further incident.