Woman Who Dated Rape Suspect Learns She Might Be Victim

A woman who dated rape suspect Andrew Stuart Luster several years ago said she only learned this week that she may be a victim when authorities played a videotape of Luster allegedly assaulting her as she lay unconscious in his beach home.

“I just had no idea I was a victim,” said the woman, whose identity is being withheld because she is an alleged sex crime victim. “I’m completely blown away by this. I just feel like something totally unfair has been done to me and there’s nothing I can do to erase it except make sure I do whatever I can to put him away.”

In an interview Thursday, the woman said she heard about the Max Factor heir’s arrest last week and wanted to warn authorities about a stash of weapons kept in his Mussel Shoals home.

But when detectives saw her, they recognized the woman as one of dozens of unconscious victims that Luster, 36, reportedly captured on videotape while engaging in sex acts with them, she said.

Luster, whose share of the cosmetics fortune is worth an estimated $30 million according to court records, faces 40 charges stemming from attacks on three women. Prosecutors say Luster used GHB, known as the date-rape drug, to knock out the women before raping them and videotaping the assaults.

Investigators, however, say there are more victims. Videotapes and photos seized from Luster’s home depict him engaging in sex acts with numerous unidentified and unconscious women, authorities said. Dates recorded on the videotapes go as far back as 1992 and are believed to have occurred in California, Nevada, Arizona and Mexico.

Though her own relationship with Luster was rocky, the alleged rape victim said she was still stunned to hear the man she dated may have committed such acts against herself and others. The woman said detectives told her of several different attacks involving herself on videotape.

She said she met him in 1996 at a popular college bar near State Street in Santa Barbara. She said she was there with a friend and the pair were just about to buy a drink when Luster and a male friend offered to buy them a round.

He was charismatic, the woman said, very easy to talk to, and spoke like he was well-educated. The group fell into easy conversation and decided to move to an upscale martini bar nearby, she said. After a drink, it was late and Luster invited the women for a dip in a hot tub back at his home overlooking the ocean, she said. At his home, the woman said, Luster began talking about a drug called GHB.

“He asked me if I had ever heard of it,” she said. “I said no, and he started telling me it’s just herbal, it’s kind of a psychedelic drug, but it’s safe.”

He explained GHB was new to the party scene, but because he had money and influential friends, he had access to the drug, she said.

The woman said she suddenly noticed her friend looked very intoxicated and Luster asked his friend to take the girl into a nearby bedroom to lie down. The woman said she was then handed a shot glass of GHB. That is the last thing she can remember, she said.

The next morning, she woke up in Luster’s room, her long black skirt pushed to her thighs, her shirt askew, she said.

“I was mad,” the woman said. “I wanted to know what happened.”

Luster, she said, teased her about not remembering. Then he quickly assured her nothing had happened. They just talked, he told her.

She believed him and the pair began dating.

Despite his wealth, Luster lived a modest lifestyle, she said. They usually spent time at his home. He enjoyed surfing, and often asked her to videotape him and his friends on the ocean. They ate in a lot and Luster would make pitchers of his favorite drink, margaritas, she said.

Luster didn’t work, the woman said, but he dabbled in the stock market.

Thursday through Saturday nights the couple headed for Santa Barbara where they frequented several local bars, she said.

But the relationship unraveled quickly. The woman said Luster became possessive. They began to fight often. She broke things off a short time later.

After the breakup, she said, Luster began showing up at her work and her home, prompting her to call the police to ask him to stay away. He left letters in her car, she said, threatening to kill himself if she did not reconcile.

It took months, she said, but he eventually left her alone. She didn’t hear of him again until news reports last week.

Another woman, 21, who also met Luster at a Santa Barbara bar, told police that she had been assaulted by him after giving her a drink that he later acknowledged was laced with GHB.

Investigators served a search warrant on Luster’s home July 18, where they said they seized vials of an unidentified liquid that they suspect is GHB. They also found photographs and homemade videos depicting unconscious women involved in sex acts, prosecutors said.

In court documents that were part of a motion to increase Luster’s bail--set at $10 million, it was stated that several of the tapes were labeled with times, places and dates. Some were also given titles, including “Real Hidden Video-Living Room.”

One tape begins with Luster speaking into the camera saying, “I dream about this, a strawberry blond passed out on my bed waiting for me to do with her what I will,” according to court documents. Later in the tape, Luster undresses a woman and appears to rape her, according to the court documents.

In her interview, the woman who dated Luster said she hopes others come forward if they suspect that he may have assaulted them.

“I’m shocked and sickened and dumbfounded as to why he would do this to me,” she said. “I was dating him. Why? I didn’t think. You just don’t know with people.”

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Times staff writer Tracy Wilson and Times Community News reporter Catherine Blake contributed to this story.