SACRAMENTO - His wife moved across the country to get away from him, and now her fears have been rekindled after he reached out to her just days ago. Sergio Alvarez, an ex-cop and accused rapist is expected to take the stand Tuesday in his own defense.
Alvarez has been in and out of court for the last year since prosecutors charged him with sexually assaulting women while on patrol. At least five victims accused him of rape, sodomy, and kidnapping. Since his arrest in early 2013, his wife Rachel and their three children moved across the country, but Rachel said Sergio called her Friday from jail to tell her he planned to testify.
"He hates that he can't hide behind me so that I might make him look good. He hates that I took his children away and that I don't tell his children what he would want them to believe," Rachel Alvarez said.
Rachel claimed her marriage was increasingly difficult and abusive, with the worst of the abuse coming just before Sergio Alvarez was arrested.
"He was choking me. He was hitting me in my face with my own arm while choking me. He was very, very abusive," Rachel said.
In recent years she says Sergio told her he was a sex addict, had affairs with her own friends, and that while working he would sometimes let female suspects off in return for sexual favors.
"I had feared that he might have hurt girls and made them do things that they didn't really want to do," Rachel said.
But it wasn't until Sergio was arrested that Rachel said she was convinced her fears were true. Now she worries what could happen to her if he's found not guilty.
"If he was free, if he's not convicted, you just talked to a dead woman," Rachel insisted.
Rachel and her three children relocated to Florida to get away from Sergio. She tells us that's no secret, that her husband knows where she is. She's working with local law enforcement there to get a restraining order and take other measures to protect her family.
