Fresh From the Spring

So a guy's semen is found in a coworker's water bottle in the OC. At first, I thought he was guilty for sure. Here's how the LATimes.com blogger Richard Winton put it:

An investment company executive was arrested Tuesday after DNA recovered from a female co-worker's water bottle revealed he allegedly put semen into a bottle that she later drank from, prosecutors say.

That is not well written - "revealed he allegedly"? How about, "An investment company executive was arrested Tuesday for allegedly placing his semen in a female coworker's water bottle. Prosecutors say the semen matched his DNA."

Now, I figured the guy was cooked, but as "Scott" pointed out in the comments at August 18, 2010 at 11:01 AM, she could have obtained the semen another way, and placed it in the bottle herself.

Michael Kevin Lallana, 31, of Fullerton…was charged with two misdemeanor counts of releasing an offensive material in a public place and assault on two separate occasions.

Two times?

The first incident allegedly occurred Jan. 14 when Lallana and the woman worked in the company's Newport Beach office. On that day, he left a semen-laced bottle of water on the victim's desk, and when she returned later, she drank from it.

Hold on a minute. Was it a bottle she left there, opened? Who goes back to their desk and drinks from an opened water bottle that they didn’t leave there, or didn’t leave there opened?

She fell ill and threw the bottle away, prosecutors said.

As "Scott" wrote:

There is something wrong with this story. First of all, ingesting semen would not make one sick.

I don't know - some women are highly disgusted by the stuff. Maybe she is allergic.

Three months later, prosecutors claim, Lallana repeated the act…in Orange, where the two had been transferred. The woman, whose identity was withheld by prosecutors, again felt ill. Suspicious of the water’s contents, she sent it to a lab for analysis. In June, the private lab warned the woman that the bottle contained semen.

But they still needed to find the match.

Taghavi said investigators were able to key in on Lallana because he worked at both locations where the incidents occurred. During the investigation Lallana eventually volunteered to provide a sample of his DNA for testing, he said.

Now, either the man is crazy, stupid, or figured he was in the clear because he didn't put his semen into her water bottle.

Taghavi said Lallana and the woman were colleagues, but Lallana had not expressed animosity toward the woman or done anything publicly to suggest he was the perpetrator.

Okay, so back to Scott's comment.

Secondly, unless the woman saved the first bottle of water from the first alleged incident back in January, which she didn't, there is no forensic evidence so where is this first incident information and evidence coming from? Maybe some co-workers were aware of what he had done and came forward? I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out the two of them were having sexual relations and she got fed up for whatever reason and set him up. I mean she could have performed oral sex on him and then deposited his semen in the bottle of water. I don't think he would have voluntarily given a DNA sample if he had done what he is accused of doing. I think there are major holes in this story, another rush to judgement story maybe.

Quite possibly. She could have also had intercourse with him, using a condom, and collected the semen that way. Or maybe she knows he has a habit of masturbating and dropping tissues into a certain waste basket.

Here's what would have to be true for prosecutors to be right:

1. In January, the suspect either masturbated at the victim's desk, or took the bottle somewhere to mb, or mb'd elsewhere and brought the semen to her desk, without her realizing, and without coworkers seeing or with coworkers being in on it.

2. We'll just assume she left an opened water bottle at her desk. She doesn't notice anything wrong with the water in the bottle before she drinks it.

3. She drinks from the bottle and the semen makes her sick, and she believes the contents of the water bottle made her sick.

4. She doesn't keep the bottle, or contact the water company – she just throws it away.

5. Three months later, steps 1-3 happen all over again.

6. She remembers the January instance.

7. Knowing he's guilty, the suspect volunteers a DNA sample.

I suppose all of this is possible. Either he's guilty or she is guilty of setting him up. Whichever it is, someone has done something very wrong.