Woman Alleges Rapist Tracked Her Down Through a Car Dealership Database

Karen Sommers' has filed a lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court that contends, in 2005, Travis Dewayne Batten, a mechanic for Fletcher Jones Motorcars, accessed the company's records to find her home in Newport Beach. Sommers and Batten did not know each other before she was attacked.

Sommers' claims the dealership's failure to protect her personal information led to her being raped at her home.

Once there, Batten entered through an unlocked door, attacked her, constrained her hands with duct tape, and sexually assaulted her.

Sommers had purchased a Mercedes from Fletcher Jones around 2004 and brought it in for service there.

Fletcher Jones conducted a criminal background check on Batten before his employment but found nothing abnormal. 

According to NBC4 Southern California, Sommers returned to the dealership time and again in the years after her brutal attack, not knowing her attacker worked there.

In June 2014, a judge sentenced Batten Jr. to 107 years to life in prison for sexually assaulting Sommers and another woman.

“You didn’t keep me safe. You allowed one of your employees to gain access into my records. Where I lived, my phone number. You allowed him to be able to come into my house and attack me,” she told the television station, referring to the car dealership. 

Court documents show Batten “did not have authorization… to review the dealership’s record for plaintiff’s address.”