A company director who raped a partygoer as she slept on a lounge on New Year’s Day – who was someone close to his own girlfriend – has lost a bid to clear his name.
Jonnathan Santiago Amaya Poveda, 37, sexually assaulted the woman, who can’t be identified for legal reasons, just after 9am on January 1, 2020, following a party at his home.
The victim told the jury she was lying face down on a couch in the lounge room when she felt Poveda remove her pants and then rape her.
The attack – which took place while another party guest was sleeping just metres away on the other side of the lounge – left the woman ‘frozen’ and ‘unable to move’.
While driving home a short time later, she burst into tears and pulled over to phone her friend and her mother to report the sexual assault to them.
Later that day, she went to see a GP and to a hospital, where she completed a Sexual Assault Investigation (SAI) kit, which later tested positive for Poveda’s semen.
She reported the assault to police on January 2, 2020, and Poveda, who runs a Sydney electrical services business, was eventually arrested in September 2021.
He had initially denied that any sexual activity had occurred between the pair, before later claiming during his trial that she had consented to – and even initiated – the sex.
Jonnathan Santiago Amaya Poveda, 37, was found guilty of rape last year
But a jury was not convinced – and Poveda was found guilty of two counts of rape and two counts of sexual touching without consent following a four-week jury trial last year.
He was sentenced in September 2024 to five years’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of three years and five months.
Details about Poveda’s shocking crime were replayed in the Supreme Court last week as he launched an unsuccessful appeal against his conviction.
During the trial, the jury was shown CCTV footage overlooking Poveda’s back yard taken on the morning of January 1, 2020, as the New Year’s Eve party wound down.
The footage showed Poveda, the woman, and another man appeared to be the only three party guests awake and active in the yard by about 8.30am.
The video showed the woman standing behind Poveda and giving him a neck massage about 9am before going inside the house.
Seconds later, the company director could be seen walking towards the back door, with his hand inside and down the front of his pants.
The CCTV indicated the pair were in the house together for 11 minutes before the third party guest, who had been outside on his phone, knocked on the back door for someone to let him inside.
Poveda then let the male guest inside who went and fell asleep on the couch, facing away from the woman, who was asleep at the other end of the lounge.
The woman told the jury Poveda assaulted her on two occasions that morning: during the 11 minutes they were alone, and then again while the male party guest was sleeping nearby.
On the first occasion, she said Poveda approached her as she was lying face down on the couch and asked if she wanted to play truth or dare, but she said no as she needed to sleep.
She said she then awoke to a hand going down her pants and Poveda sexually assaulting her with his fingers, at which point she froze, but she could recognise his voice as he said her nickname twice.
She said he stopped when the third party guest knocked on the door, before coming back, removing her pants, raping her with his penis, ejaculating, then throwing a blanket on her and walking out of the room.
CCTV showed the woman left the house at 10.08am, with a friend and her mother telling the court she contacted them shortly after, crying and ‘distraught’ in a ‘very bad’ state.
The victim told both women that Poveda ‘had his way with [her]’ and that she ‘froze’ and couldn’t ‘even move’ during the attack.
The prosecution argued that Poveda ‘drunkenly got the wrong idea’ about the neck massage – despite the CCTV indicating she did not look sexually interested in him.
Born in Colombia, he is the director of his self-titled company, Poveda Group, which offers electrical contracting services
The CCTV showed the neck rub was instigated when Poveda began rubbing his neck for around 20 seconds as he spoke to the woman.
She then walked behind his plastic chair and gave him a neck rub for four minutes.
During the massage, the woman only used her right hand, kept her cigarette in her left hand, and she maintained a distance from Poveda by standing back from his chair.
However, the CCTV showed Poveda appearing to make advances towards the woman that she seemed to ignore – including bending his head back towards her and trying to put his hand on hers.
Poveda argued in court that he was about to go to bed at 9am when he ran into the family member who said she wanted one last cigarette, so he joined her outside.
He said he became sexually aroused by the massage and followed the woman inside – where she grabbed his hand, closed the door, and started pulling him towards the couch.
He claimed they then began ‘dry humping’ and then she took off her pants before they engaged in consensual sex.
Poveda claimed the encounter ended when his cousin came and pulled him away into another room to have a chat, at which point the male guest outside knocked on the door.
However, that version of events was contradicted by the male guest’s testimony that when he entered the house, he saw Poveda’s cousin asleep in another room.
Several witnesses also testified that Poveda told them he could not remember what happened that night.
When confronted by his partner about what she had been told, Poveda told the jury he said it wasn’t true because he ‘didn’t want to say more than [he] had to’.
But in appealing his case, Poveda argued the guilty verdicts were unreasonable because the pair were not alone together for long enough for the assault to have happened.
He said there was an insufficient amount of time for her version of events to have occurred and that if they had, the other male guest sleeping nearby would have noticed.
Poveda also argued there were two miscarriages of justice stemming from a comment and a direction made by the trial judge to the jury.
However, the three judges – Justice Kristina Stern, Justice Peter Garling, and Justice Deborah Sweeney – rejected Poveda’s appeal.
‘All of the events which the complainant described in her evidence could readily have occurred within 11 minutes,’ they said in their ruling.
Justice Sweeney added: ‘I do not have a reasonable doubt about the applicant’s guilt.’
Records obtained by the Daily Mail show Poveda, who was born in Colombia, launched his self-titled company in 2015.
According to Poveda Group’s website, the company offers electrical services for ‘commercial, industrial, and domestic installations, security systems, smart wiring automation, electronic appliances, and audiovisual installations’.
‘Established in 2009, Poveda Group is committed to delivering quality advice and professional electrical services for your residential or corporate needs,’ it reads.
‘Making customer satisfaction a major priority while providing competitive prices makes us a preferred choice with our clientele all the time.’
Poveda will be eligible for release on November 18, 2027.