SOURCE TELLS VOICE ‘RAPE FETISH’ LED TO INCIDENT;
ALVES: ‘THIS SEX-ADDICTION THING IS A SICKNESS’

By Theresa Carli
[email protected]

Former Valencia contract worker Marcelo Alves, jailed on charges of sexual assault, pleaded not guilty last week, and a source close to the investigation told the Valencia Voice that Alves’ defense is likely to be that the entire incident was staged as an elaborate fantasy.

Alves was arrested March 17 for allegedly attacking a 20-year-old woman near a vacant lakefront mansion in the Dr. Phillips area and sexually assaulting her March 16.

The source, who requested anonymity, told the Voice that Alves and the victim planned the alleged attack, because they shared a “rape fetish.”

Alves’ attorney, Tim Berry, filed a plea of not guilty March 26. Messages to Berry with requests for comment were not returned.

Alves is confident four criminal charges — kidnapping, aggravated battery and two counts of sexual battery — will be dropped in court.

“I know I’ll get through this, because what she’s saying is not true,” Alves told his wife, Anna, in a phone call from jail April 2. “Once we go to trial, all of the charges are going to be dropped.”

Alves claimed in the phone conversation that information on his computer will clear him. (He did not mention anything about the attack being staged in that phone call or any other calls reviewed by the Voice, provided by the Orange County Jail.)

According to the source, evidence of online-chat conversations between the suspect and alleged victim planning a fantasy scenario might be found on both of their computers.

“The only thing that is going to complicate things is the knife,” Alves said during his phone call (spoken in Portuguese, and translated for the Voice). “The knife was for my self-protection. If they take out the knife thing, then the charges will be dropped.”

To compound Alves’ problems, he was served April 1 with divorce papers by his wife of 16 years.

Alves is a citizen of Brazil, but due to his wife’s United States citizenship, he is a permanent resident of the U.S. and has a green card. If he gets divorced and is convicted of these crimes, the U.S. has the right to deport him back to Brazil.

“In my heart, I know I’m not a bad person,” Alves told his wife in one phone call. “Unfortunately, this sex-addiction thing is a sickness.”