Victims’ rights advocates point out that women who come forward with allegations of sexual assault are often not believed. They took frequent walks around agency grounds, and Bayatpour testified that Cuda often seemed to be going through a hard time. Cuda testified that he told her, “This is what I want to do to you,” and leaned in to kiss her. Bayatpour told her he was in love, that he thought he had found the woman he was going to marry. “In the stairwell, I was thinking, I need to do something funny to break the mood,” Bayatpour told the jury.

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