‘I was just trapped’: Judge upholds rape case against cab driver who allegedly waited for women outside Santa Rita Jail

DUBLIN — Jane Doe was tired, fresh out of jail and out of money. Then, she testified, the cab driver she’d agreed to go with to a local hotel began making sexual advances.

“I just kind of feel like I was stuck. Like I was just trapped,” Doe testified at a Jan. 22 preliminary hearing. “You know, feeling like: What have I got myself into once again?”

At the hearing’s end, an Alameda County Superior Court judge ordered 65-year-old Gulagha Khalili to stand trial on charges of rape and forcible oral copulation of Doe, and a misdemeanor charge of soliciting a second woman about a week after the alleged sexual assault. Police say that on March 23 and April 1, Khalili, a taxi driver, sat outside Santa Rita Jail in Dublin waiting for women to pick up and either sexually assaulted or made lewd advances toward both victims.

Doe testified that she was released from the jail around 8 a.m. on March 23, 2025, with about $25 and a phone that deputies allowed her to charge for a few minutes in the lobby before sending her on her way. She said that she gave $20 to Khalili and that he told her he worked for the jail, a claim she said he would use to threaten her once they were alone together, according to court testimony.

She testified she wanted to get back to her two sons in Oakland but agreed to smoke marijuana and drink wine with Khalili in a local hotel room. She said once they got there, he told her that he could’t be arrested and she got a sinking feeling that things would go badly. He then allegedly forcibly raped her and afterward insisted on receiving oral sex, telling her he spent money on the marijuana and wine and adding a threat to send her back to jail, according to court records.

She testified on the stand that she put a condom on him but that when he realized it was there he took it off and forced himself on her as she attempted to end it.

On cross-examination, Khalili’s lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Nicholas Cotter, argued all three charges should be dismissed. He pointed to inconsistent statements from Doe — like claiming she only had $20 when she left the jail, then later saying she had about $25. He also asked her on cross examination about a prior conviction for prostitution, which she denied having. She said she was arrested in 2019 for alleged prostitution in Maryland but it was based on a “misunderstanding.”

The second alleged victim, who testified that on April 1 Khalili placed a hand on her thigh after locking the taxi door behind her, but then let her out when she denied his request for sexual “favors,” had identified the wrong person from a police photo lineup. Furthermore, her description of the suspect didn’t match Khalil, Cotter argued in court.

But Judge Paul Delucchi said the woman’s identification of Khalili in court was enough to uphold the misdemeanor charge and Doe’s testimony was enough to progress the case past the low legal bar for preliminary hearings. He said that Doe’s placement of the condom may have indicated consent at one point during the interaction, but this didn’t absolve Khalili of the alleged crime.

“Consent can be withdrawn at any time and Jane Doe 1 made it clear that upon the defendant removing the condom that she did not want to perform oral sex on him,” Delucchi said.

Khalili, who was charged last year, was released in September 2025  by Judge Veronica Rios Reddick. He remains free and a trial date has not yet been set.