After a long semester, Fátima Rodriguez-Ortiz was looking forward to hanging out with her friends at the University of Southern California (USC) Village, a "living community" for students adjacent to the main campus. The 33-year-old had moved from the Bay Area to Los Angeles in 2024 to pursue a Master's in Public Administration and Finance degree at USC’s Sol Price School of Public Policy.
On the evening of November 13, 2025, most of the people in attendance at the Rock and Riley’s bar were coming from USC’s Sol Price School of Public Policy networking event at the nearby USC Hotel. Hoping to grab a quick drink with fellow graduate students, Rodriguez-Ortiz headed to USC Village, where she met up with friends.
She recalls that upon arriving at the bar, a man she had “never seen before” waved her over and invited her to sit next to him.
After politely declining, Rodriguez-Ortiz made her way to the other side of the bar, where her friends were sitting together. Some time later, the same man approached her and introduced himself only as “Arturo,” whom she later learned was Arturo Flores, who at that time was the mayor of Huntington Park.
Before that night, Flores was generally seen as a respected politician.
He is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a degree in Political Science in 2017. He became a member of the Huntington Park City Council in 2022 and, in March 2025, was chosen by his peers to assume the role of mayor. During the mass deployment of federal troops across Southern California by the Trump administration, Flores was an outspoken advocate for immigrant communities.
The initial interactions with Flores did not worry Rodriguez-Ortiz, as she felt reassured by the presence of so many of her student colleagues nearby and recognized that the social gathering was intended for networking.
Rodriguez-Ortiz and Flores talked. The two discussed shared similarities, such as professional goals, being Latinos in higher education, and both having parents who were Mexican immigrants.
“I felt a little bit of ease talking about that,” she tells L.A. TACO.
However, as the night passed, Flores made several comments that gave Rodriguez-Ortiz pause, including asking her, “How would you feel if you met your husband tonight?” which she felt was made in reference to him.
At one point, Flores took Rodriguez-Ortiz's phone, opened Instagram, and added himself. Before he returned the phone, Flores had pulled up the website for the city of Huntington Park. According to Rodriguez-Ortiz, Flores said, “Read this. What does it say?” She responded by reading out loud: “Arturo Flores, Mayor of Huntington Park.” He then replied, “That’s right.”
Without being prompted, Flores offered to use his influence to help Rodriguez-Ortiz find employment after graduation, at which point she began to feel uncomfortable with the conversation.
“He did tell me that because of his status and his position, he could help me get any job that I wanted,” she recalls. According to Rodriguez-Ortiz, she did not request this of Flores at any point during their conversation.
As it was nearing midnight, Rodriguez-Ortiz decided it was time to go home. After saying goodbye to her friends, she headed out. Rodriguez-Ortiz said Flores followed her out of the bar and offered to walk her to her car, which was parked in the same underground parking lot as hers. She reluctantly agreed, assuming he was heading home as well.
Rodriguez-Ortiz says they reached Flores’s car first, and he insisted that she get into his vehicle so that he could “drive” her to her car.
Rodriguez-Ortiz tells L.A. TACO that she declined at first, but Flores kept pressing the point, pointing out that she was wearing heels and insisting she must be tired of walking.
“I think it was then that it hit me that it was just him and me in the parking lot at midnight,” she says. “I thought, I don’t know this man. What if I make him mad?”
After some initial back-and-forth, Rodriguez-Ortiz says she could feel Flores was “not accepting no for an answer,” so she decided it would be easier to accept the ride to her vehicle.
According to Rodriguez-Ortiz’s account of events, it was after she entered Flores’s vehicle that the alleged assault began.
“Before I realized what was happening, he put his hands on my chest, and I said, ’Don’t do that,'” she recalls.
She says that even though she declined his advances, Flores proceeded to take his pants off while they were both still seated in the vehicle.
“He grabbed my hand and made me hold his penis,” she says. After Rodriguez-Ortiz took her hand off, he attempted to put her hand back.
Rodriguez-Ortiz admits that some of her recollections from the night were a blur, but she vividly remembers Flores putting his hands down her pants and “inserting his fingers inside” of her.
She recalls that after that, Flores climbed over to her side of the car and got on top of her. She tells L.A. TACO that she could feel the weight of his body on hers because he was heavier than her.
Rodriguez-Ortiz alleges that Flores tugged on her pants despite vocalizing that she did not want him to continue.
“I could feel his energy . . . and I’m like this guy is going to rape me,” she says.
She described this as the moment when she shifted from a “freeze mindset” to a mindset of preparing to fight. In an act of defense, she threw open the car door, hoping to escape.
“[Flores] looked scared because he didn’t want anyone to see what was going on,” she says. “I took my chance, kicked him off, and ran out.”
After the alleged assault, Rodriguez-Ortiz quickly walked to her car and got inside. She noticed Flores had returned to his car and drove it up next to hers. He was attempting to talk to her through the window. Rodriguez-Ortiz called one of her friends in a panic and asked the person on the other end of the line to stay on the phone with her, while Flores remained in his car next to hers.
Flores made several attempts to get Rodriguez-Ortiz to give him her address and even followed her home from the campus parking, according to Rodriguez-Ortiz.
As she approached her neighborhood, Rodriguez-Ortiz decided to park a couple of blocks away, worried that Flores might follow her inside. Throughout this encounter, she remained on the phone with her friend while Flores repeatedly asked her, “Who are you talking to?”
It wasn’t until Flores finally drove away, after approximately 10 minutes, that Rodriguez-Ortiz shared with her friend that she had been sexually assaulted.
“She could tell I was very emotional,” Rodriguez-Ortiz remembers.
Rodriguez-Ortiz says Flores continued to spam call her even after he drove off. She answered an incoming call from him at 1:31 a.m. and Flores told her that “he was still around the area, and that we could finish what we started in the car," Rodriguez-Ortiz said.
Rodriguez-Ortiz's friend, who was on the phone with her that night, agreed to be interviewed but chose to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. The individual corroborated both the conversation involving Rodriguez-Ortiz and the timeline of the phone call that she had with Rodriguez-Ortiz following the alleged assault. She also confirmed that after Flores drove away, Rodriguez-Ortiz remained on the phone for an additional 20 minutes to ensure he had left.
In total, Flores called Rodriguez-Ortiz seven times. L.A. TACO independently verified the call log from Rodriguez-Ortiz’s phone, showing Flores’s missed calls in the early hours of that morning. The first call was made at 12:31 a.m., and the last attempted call was at 2:17 a.m..
During this period, Flores attempted to turn on the “disappearing messages” feature in Instagram Messenger, but Rodriguez-Ortiz turned it back off.
In Instagram messages reviewed by L.A. TACO, sent the day after the alleged assault, Rodriguez-Ortiz expressed her discomfort with Flores’ actions the night prior.
“I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t feel comfortable talking to you after what happened yesterday. You took advantage when I was in a vulnerable situation, that wasn’t cool,” she texted Flores.
Rodriguez-Ortiz ended her interaction with Flores by telling him, “I hope you don’t repeat this with other women moving forward.”
Flores’s final message to Rodriguez-Ortiz simply stated that he “respected” her decision and would no longer reach out or continue communication.
In the aftermath of the assault, Rodriguez-Ortiz said she was primarily focused on finishing her finals.
“I was checked out . . . finals were coming up, and I needed to focus on my studies,” she says.
Although nearly a month passed between the incident and the initial report, Rodriguez-Ortiz says that she always intended to file a police report against Flores.
“I told myself as soon as the semester is over, I’m going to talk to authorities, and that’s what I did,” she says.
On December 18, 2025, Rodriguez-Ortiez filed a temporary restraining order against Flores at the Los Angeles Superior Court, according to public records reviewed by L.A. TACO. She also reported Flores to USC’s Office of Civil Rights Compliance (OCRC), which handles incidents or allegations of sexual assault involving USC faculty, staff, or students.
Rodriguez-Ortiz was originally told by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) that there were too many “cracks” in her story and that they did not believe criminal charges would hold up in court. However, the LAPD did open an investigation which, according to Rodriguez-Ortiz, remains ongoing.
“That's when it started to dawn on me that this was real,” she says.
Rodriguez-Ortiz’s family initially expressed concern about her decision to report Flores, fearing potential retaliation from someone in his position of power.
“They said, if he had the willingness and audacity to follow you home, and do all these things, then how is he going to use his finances and connections to retaliate?” Rodriguez-Ortiz recalls.
Despite feeling confident about her decision, Rodriguez-Ortiz says she still had a lot of anxiety after filing the restraining order and even had nightmares about what Flores would do in retaliation.
In mid-January, the City of Huntington Park announced that Flores had resigned from his role as mayor to “focus on responding to an attempted recall of his city council seat,” but that he would continue to serve as a member of the city council. They made no mention of the sexual assault allegations against the Councilmember.
On March 20, a Facebook group called ‘The Metro Watch’ published a post about Flores’ sexual assault allegations, which included the restraining order that Rodriguez-Ortiz filed with her name and address. Soon after, the story gained attention, and the media picked it up.
On March 23, Rodriguez-Ortiz discovered an article published by CALÓ News, which initially included a link to the uploaded restraining order, but was later removed.
“To be transparent, it felt very embarrassing and humiliating . . . and for that to be out there [in the media] felt very uncomfortable,” Rodriguez-Ortiz tells L.A. TACO.
Since the news broke, there have been ongoing recall efforts and public pressure for Flores to resign from the council. However, as of the publishing date of this story, Flores remains a sitting council member.
USC initially issued a statement indicating that Flores was “prohibited from setting foot on USC campus until further notice.” On April 10, Rodriguez-Ortiz was notified that the OCRC had dismissed the Formal Complaint in its entirety due to the fact that Flores is no longer affiliated with the university.
The notice of dismissal stated, “A review of University records indicates that Respondent’s affiliation with the University ended on January 9, 2026.”
According to documents from the Los Angeles Superior Court, the restraining order against Flores was also dismissed, which is common if the person cannot be served before the court hearing date.
Rodriguez-Ortiz, however, told L.A. TACO that she filed a request for a civil harassment restraining order on April 21, with a pending court hearing scheduled for May.
L.A. TACO reviewed copies of the OCRC complaint as well as both restraining orders.
Attempts were made to reach out to Flores via email and text for comment, but no response has been received.
Although Rodriguez-Ortiz hoped for a more immediate outcome, she still believes “justice” can be served if Flores steps down from his position as a council member and is held accountable for his actions.
“He poses as a danger to other students, and particularly other women in the space,” she tells L.A. TACO. “It makes me fear what he is capable of when he has access and opportunity to do this to other women.”
In the meantime, Rodriguez-Ortiz says she has found strength in using her voice.
“As time has gone by, I'm learning to find power in my story,” she says. “I would rather it come from my voice than anyone else.”
