By Sarah Elizabeth Villicana, The Porterville Recorder
A Porterville judge will decide if there is enough evidence to send four suspects to trial in the alleged rape and false imprisonment of a Clovis woman.

Porterville residents Samantha Stuart, 23, Robert Gracia, 34, Steven Mejia, 39, and Benito Munoz, 37, are scheduled to appear in court Wednesday at a preliminary hearing on charges ranging from kidnapping and false imprisonment to forcible rape and oral copulation.

On Oct. 10, Stuart, 23, and another woman were found by Porterville police in the garage of Gracia and Munoz in the 1000 block of North Wisconsin Way.

The victims told police they were held against their will and raped repeatedly by Gracia and Munoz, according to previous reports.

The two women, who were reportedly friends, met Gracia Oct. 8 on a Tulare street and agreed to go for a ride. The Clovis woman told police she was taken to Porterville, where she was forced to give oral sex to Gracia, Mejia and a third man. Police later obtained information implicating Stuart as one of the suspects rather than a victim.

Investigators believe the female victim was kidnapped to pay off a debt Stuart owed to Gracia. The victim had the know-how to create fictitious checks, police said in court documents.

When the victim told the men she needed specific software and a computer to complete the task, which were not available to her, the men began to sexually assault her, police said.

The victim was able to lead police officers to her location by passing a note to a Save Mart clerk stating she had been kidnapped by “Nortenos on Wisconsin.”

The preliminary hearing is set for 8:30 a.m. in Dept. 2 of the Tulare County Superior Court, Porterville Division.

Contact Sarah Villicana at 784-5000, Ext. 1045, or svillicana@portervillerecorder.com.