UCSB Student Convicted of Multiple Rapes Sentenced to 30 Years After Courthouse Escape

Arian Eteghaei walked out of a Santa Barbara courtroom on January 16 with a guilty verdict hanging over him—convicted of raping and sexually assaulting multiple women while a student at UC Santa Barbara. He did not walk out for long. Moments after the jury returned its decision, authorities say he bolted from custody in a brazen escape attempt. He was caught, charged with felony escape by force, and ultimately sentenced to thirty years to life in California state prison.

The case represents the culmination of a years-long prosecution centered on sexual violence committed while Eteghaei was enrolled at the university. The jury found him guilty of forcible rape and forcible sexual penetration, and also determined that his crimes involved multiple victims. He was additionally convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence. Santa Barbara County District Attorney John T. Savrnoch credited the women who came forward, calling their participation in the legal process an act of extraordinary courage. "Their strength and willingness to testify allowed the truth to be heard and ultimately allowed the defendant to be held accountable for the serious harm he caused," Savrnoch said in a statement.

The conviction arrives amid intensifying scrutiny of sexual violence at UC Santa Barbara, which Niche has ranked as America's top party school for the past two years. The university's own crime data tells a stark story. Between 2022 and 2024, campus police recorded more than one hundred reported rapes. The numbers alone do not capture the texture of what has been happening on campus. In May 2026, an eighteen-year-old freshman reported being raped and strangled after meeting a man at a fraternity party and returning with him to her dorm at Tropicana Gardens in Isla Vista. Days later, her family, represented by attorney Tyrone Maho, made a public appeal for witnesses, describing the attacker as a potential ongoing threat to the community. The incident sparked a candlelight vigil where students gathered to mourn and voice their fears about safety.

Then in June, just weeks later, another woman reported being stalked and groped in daylight near Tierra De Fortuna Park on the university's West Campus. She was walking along a paved access road around 11:30 a.m. on June 24 when a man on a bicycle passed her, circled back multiple times over the next fifteen minutes, and on his third approach, grabbed her from behind before fleeing toward the park. The incident prompted the second campus-wide Timely Warning issued by UCSB police in under two months.

These recent cases have intensified questions about institutional response and prevention. The family of the May assault survivor explicitly urged the university's chancellor to request that the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office take over the investigation, signaling a loss of confidence in campus police capacity. UC Santa Barbara police have stated that federal law constrains what they can publicly disclose about active investigations, but emphasized that all reports of crimes on university property are fully investigated by sworn officers and that they maintain direct contact with victims' families and coordinate with county authorities.

Eteghaei's escape from custody added another layer to the case. The January 16 bolt from the courthouse led prosecutors to charge him in March with one count of escape by force, a separate felony that will extend his time in custody beyond the thirty-year sentence. The escape itself became a symbol of the case's broader dimensions—a moment when the machinery of justice nearly failed, when a man convicted of multiple rapes nearly walked free. That he did not, that he was apprehended and charged again, offers a narrow reassurance. But it does not address the underlying question that now hangs over the campus: what institutional failures allowed so much sexual violence to occur, and what changes might prevent it going forward.