In 2015, with a binder of evidence from Claire and a year-long police investigation complete, the San Diego district attorney formally charged Alex, Jason, and Jonas with two counts of rape, of an intoxicated person and an unconscious person.
Jonas Dick and Jason Berlin both pleaded guilty to one count for Claire’s rape.
Jonas’s crime was essentially rape in concert—even though he hadn’t had sex with Claire, he admitted that he’d known what Alex was allegedly planning to do to her. According to California law, by keeping Claire’s friend Laura occupied—in part by hiding her phone—Jonas had acted as an accomplice, and was just as responsible.
Jonas was also charged with another rape shortly after being charged with Claire’s.
This one belonged to an underage girl who was celebrating her 16th birthday with two friends at the chain restaurant Dick’s Last Resort in 2012. Jonas joined the girls’ table, then convinced them to accompany him back to the hostel where he was living. He offered a tour, grabbed the birthday girl by hand, took away her phone, and whisked her into his room. As her friends searched for her up and down the halls of the hostel, Jonas threw the 110-pound girl on his bed and raped her as she begged him to stop. When it was over, he ejaculated on her stomach, threw her a T-shirt, and said, “Happy Birthday.”
She ran from the room, found her friends, and flagged down a patrol car to make a rape report.
It’s unclear whether police tried to find or apprehend Jonas in his hostel that night. The San Diego PD did not respond to a request for details on that investigation and the court case file is thin. It’s also unknown why it took three years to test her rape kit. Nevertheless, it eventually was tested—and came back with a match for Jonas Dick.
During Jonas’s August 2016 sentencing for both rapes, District Attorney Lisa Fox asked Judge Fraser for eight years, the maximum that the plea deal carried. She noted that Jonas’s quick guilty pleas were not necessarily because he felt regret, but because he wanted protection from “exposing himself to more [charges].”
As it turns out, Jonas’s DNA swab matched yet another victim in a national DNA database, as Fox discovered at a preliminary hearing. For that case—which, according to Fox, involved alcohol and a college student—Jonas has not been charged.