A single mother of a young son, a cocktail waitress leaving her shift early on a slow Saturday afternoon, found herself thrust into a nightmare that would last exactly 72 minutes. Aaron Orcutt thought she was heading home for a relaxing evening, but instead, a man with a gun forced his way into her car, starting a harrowing ordeal of sexual assault, psychological terror, and a desperate sprint for freedom that would ultimately expose a 𝓈𝒽𝓸𝒸𝓀𝒾𝓃𝑔 betrayal of trust.
The abduction began in the parking lot of a Dave & Buster’s restaurant in Ontario, California, where Aaron worked. As she clicked her key fob to unlock her SUV, a stranger approached and ordered her to get in. Initially, she thought it was a prank by a coworker, but then she saw the gun, a weapon held low against the man’s waist, shielded from view by an accomplice standing behind him.
With no one else in the lot to witness the crime, Aaron complied.
Forced into the driver’s seat with the gunman beside her, Aaron was told simply to drive. She had no destination, but she instinctively steered toward areas where police were known to patrol, hoping to scare her attacker or attract help. The man, later identified as Westminster police officer Anthony Orban, did not specify where to go.
He instead began to assault her while she was driving, a terror that would escalate over the next hour.
Aaron pleaded with him to let her go, offering him her car, promising not to call the police. He remained silent, his gun a constant, menacing presence. When she pulled into a restaurant parking lot she believed was safe because of frequent police patrols, the lot was empty.
The gunman ordered her to drive around to the back of the building, but a gated storage unit blocked their path. Frustrated, he demanded she stop the car.
Surveillance footage obtained exclusively by Crime Watch Daily shows the SUV parking, and what happened next was even worse. Orban forced Aaron into the backseat, where her young son’s car seat was still installed. He sat on top of it, then ordered her to undress.
When she cried, he pressed the gun to her head and racked the slide, ejecting a live bullet onto the seat to prove the weapon was fully loaded. He told her to smile for pictures, which he then texted to his accomplice, Jeffrey Jelinek, a state correctional officer who had remained in the parking lot.
The assault continued for more than an hour. Orban tried to rape Aaron but was unable to maintain an erection, something he later blamed on a combination of alcohol and the antidepressant Zoloft. He struck her in the face multiple times, forced her onto her stomach, and attempted to penetrate her from behind.
Throughout, he was on the phone with Jelinek, laughing and exchanging crude comments. Aaron realized that her abductor was a police officer because of his badge, his radio, and his clear familiarity with law enforcement tactics.
At one point, Orban mentioned they would drive to the desert to finish what he started. Aaron understood that if she did not escape immediately, she would likely be killed. She noticed that his gun had fallen to the floor, sliding under the passenger seat.
She also remembered that the child safety lock on her door was disabled on the driver’s side, the only door that could open from the inside. When Orban’s phone rang again, she seized the moment.
She threw open the door and ran. Exterior surveillance video shows a barefoot Aaron fleeing across the parking lot, screaming at the top of her lungs that a man had a gun. She ran into a nearby liquor store, where the owner, who had been suspicious of the SUV parked for so long, grabbed her and pulled her behind the counter.
She was safe, but the trauma was only beginning.
Orban tried to start Aaron’s car but failed because she had installed a hidden 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 switch. He then fled on foot, but he left behind critical evidence: his gun, sunglasses, biological fluids, and, most damningly, a piece of tape on the bottom of the gun’s magazine that bore his name. Detective Robert Marquez of the Ontario Police Department recognized that technique as standard practice for police officers to identify their magazines in a gunfight.
The realization that the attacker was a cop sent shockwaves through the investigation.
Within hours, officers tracked down Anthony Orban and Jeffrey Jelinek in a nearby parking lot. Both men matched the descriptions Aaron had given. They even had her keys.
When Aaron identified Orban as her attacker, she felt a sickening dread. She believed that no justice would come because the system would protect its own. She was proven wrong.
In interrogation videos obtained by Crime Watch Daily, Orban claimed he had drunk three or four margaritas at lunch and taken his antidepressant Zoloft, resulting in a blackout. He insisted he remembered nothing, not even pulling down his pants. Jelinek initially played along but soon broke, telling detectives to check the photos on his phone.
Those photos, taken by Orban during the assault, showed Aaron forced to perform 𝒔𝒆𝒙 acts. The two men had been playing a grim game, trying to outdo each other in depravity.
Orban pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, arguing that the Zoloft made him unconscious and unable to control his actions. The jury did not believe him. After a trial that forced Aaron to relive every moment, he was convicted on eight felony counts, including kidnapping, rape, and multiple sexual assaults.
The judge indicated she would sentence him to 82 years to life, followed by a consecutive 95-year term.
But two and a half years after the kidnapping, as Aaron prepared to confront him at sentencing, she received a phone call: Anthony Orban had hanged himself in his jail cell. He had cheated her of the closure she desperately needed. Yet in an extraordinary moment, the judge allowed Aaron to read her victim impact statement to the courtroom, including Orban’s family.
She spoke of the horrors she endured, her disappointment in his cowardice, and ultimately, her forgiveness. I forgive you, she said, because to move on, you cannot hold onto hate.
Aaron Orcutt now lives with PTSD, panic attacks, and depression, but she refuses to be defined as a victim. She has reclaimed her life, her power, and her voice. The attack lasted only 72 minutes, but the aftermath will last a lifetime.
Still, she stands as a testament to survival against the ultimate betrayal of someone sworn to protect and serve.