Will bar owner accused of rape have to wear GPS to keep him out of bars, strip clubs?

Additional bond conditions could soon be added against a downtown Fort Worth bar owner accused of raping a woman who had passed out inside his business, including that he wear a GPS monitor and doesn’t go into any bars or strip clubs.

Israel Espiricueta, an owner of The Library Bar, has been free after posting a $10,000 bond since his arrest in February.

Though previous bond conditions prohibited Espiricueta from possessing or consuming alcohol, recent social media posts have indicated that Espiricueta had recently been seen visiting Fort Worth bars.

A bartender at The Boiled Owl Tavern on West Magnolia Avenue even posted on Facebook about refusing Espiricueta service and encouraged others to do the same, prompting a story in the Fort Worth Weekly.

“Israel Epspiricueta, (sic) aka the Library Bar owner who is accused of rape, is currently wandering around Magnolia with two women. If you are at work at a neighborhood business rn, here’s his face. I refused him service, and I hope you do, too,” the Sept. 6 post by Steve Steward states.

Espiricueta’s case file shows more stringent bond conditions were approved by State District Judge Louis Sturns and filed with the District Clerk’s Office on Sept. 14. The new conditions state Espiricueta must wear a GPS ankle monitor with “exclusion zones” and can not go into “any bars or strip clubs.”

Brandon Barnett, Espircueta’s new defense attorney, said Thursday that the conditions have not yet been implemented. He said he is scheduled to meet with the judge and the court’s probation officer on Friday to discuss the matter.

“The judge may end up ordering them; he may not. I don’t know yet,” Barnett said.

The judge could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Steward, the bartender who refused Espiricueta service, said he’ s been issued a subpoena to testify at Espiricueta’s hearing Friday.

Steward said he was closing out a customer’s tab on Sept. 6 when two women and a familiar looking man walked into The Boiled Owl and placed their IDs on the bar top.

“I vaguely recognized him from the newspaper and then I saw his name and I recognized his name,” Steward said.

Steward said he then pulled up the Star-Telegram’s article regarding the rape allegation against Espiricueta on his phone.

The article outlined how Espiricueta’s accuser reported the sexual assault to Fort Worth police on Christmas Eve. She told investigators that she’d been drinking with bar employees at The Library after hours and only remembered snippets of Espiricueta later driving her to a hotel and sexually assaulting her.

But surveillance video confiscated by detectives showed the sexual encounter had begun at the bar, with the owner positioning the apparently unconscious woman across the bar to have sex with her, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

“I said I’m not going to serve you, and he kind of looked at me and started to say something and that’s when I held up my phone and I said, ‘This is you, right?’” Steward recalled. “He knew right away why I wasn’t going to serve him and he just said, ‘OK, that’s fine.’”

Steward said as the trio collected their IDs, Espiricueta remarked to him, “Innocent until proven guilty, bro. I’ve only been accused.”

“That’s when I said, ‘Of rape’ and they walked out,” Steward said.

In addition to posting on his own Facebook page, Steward said he posted a warning about Espiricueta’s attempt to drink at the bar on a closed Facebook page of Near Southside bars. Through that post, he said he later learned that Espiricueta had gone to another Magnolia bar after leaving The Boiled Owl.

He said he is unaware if Espiricueta drank alcohol at the other bar.

“I didn’t serve him any alcohol. He didn’t ask me for any alcohol but I didn’t give him a chance,” Steward said.

Barnett, Espiricueta’s attorney, acknowledged that the recent social posts regarding sightings of Espiricueta at Fort Worth bars could have prompted the new look at his client’s bond conditions.

Barnett stopped short of saying he was objecting to such added conditions.

“I always like to make sure my clients know all that’s required of them before we get in trouble or anything like that,” he said. “We’re just going to make sure we know exactly what the judge wants and do that.”

Steward said he doesn’t know the woman who has accused Espiricueta of sexual assault but felt a duty to make the man leave his bar out of “principal.”

“One thing that we all strive for at my bar is to have a safe environment for our customers, especially women,” he said. “I don’t want some accused rapist hanging around my bar.”

He said while many woman have thanked him for refusing Espiricueta service, he doesn’t feel his actions should be lauded.

“I feel like I was just kind of doing the basic bar for human integrity and decency,” he said.

Espiricueta was indicted in June on a sexual assault charge, a second-degree felony.

Samantha Jordan, a spokeswoman with the District Attorney’s Office, declined to comment Thursday on what, if any, additional conditions prosecutors may propose against Espiricueta.

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This story was originally published September 20, 2018 at 5:02 PM.