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DNA hearings: SF officers gave suspect in rapes alcohol test even though they didn’t think he was drunk

San Francisco police never smelled alcohol when they pulled over Orlando Vilchez Lazo last year. They never gave him a field sobriety test. And, an officer testified in court on Monday, they never believed he was intoxicated.

But in the early morning hours of July 7, 2018, officers nonetheless made Vilchez Lazo blow into an alcohol screening test. They wanted his DNA.

The genetic material police obtained from the suspect’s saliva without a warrant is now at the center of a legal showdown over the constitutionality of a police stop that ultimately cracked the notorious “Rideshare Rapist” case.

A judge began hearing testimony from officers during the first day of a hearing in San Francisco Superior Court to determine whether the search was illegal and whether the evidence should be tossed that police used to identify Vilchez Lazo, 38, as a suspect in at least four rapes — an arrest police celebrated.

Typically, police get a warrant from a judge, or they try to collect a discarded item when they want to collect a person’s DNA.

Prosecutors have argued that the search was not illegal because the mouthpiece that Vilchez Lazo used when he blew a 0.0% blood alcohol level should be considered discarded material and is not protected by his Fourth Amendment rights against illegal searches and seizures.

What’s more, Officer Jose Rosales-Renteria testified on Monday that he witnessed Vilchez Lazo illegally change lanes before he pulled him over, despite admitting he was told to look out for the suspect’s silver Honda that had been circling nightclubs in the South of Market neighborhood that night.

Assistant District Attorney Lailah Morris said that even if Judge Newton Lam determines the stop violated Vilchez Lazo’s constitutional rights, the evidence should still be admissible because investigators were following multiple leads that would have inevitably brought them to the defendant.

But Deputy Public Defender Sandy Feinland argued in a court motion last week that police illegally searched his client as part of a “fishing expedition,” and all the DNA evidence, along with all subsequent evidence obtained in the case, should be suppressed.

This week’s testimony comes as the latest turn in the still-unfolding case that raised questions about the safety of app-based ride-hailing services.

Vilchez Lazo worked for Lyft at the time of the crimes, police said, but was not using the platform when he lured his victims into his car. Lyft later terminated Vilchez Lazo and said it has strengthened its background check process after authorities revealed he was in the country illegally from Peru.

The morning of the stop, Rosales-Renteria and Officer Nicole Hicks got a call over their radio to be on the lookout for the Honda, both officers testified on Monday. Around 2:40 a.m., they spotted the vehicle traveling westbound on Howard Street, and Rosales-Renteria testified that he saw the driver “switch lanes without using a signal” as a pretext for the stop.

Once they stopped Vilchez Lazo at Fourth and Howard, Hicks ran his driver’s license information in her patrol car’s computer while Rosales-Renteria began speaking with police investigators who came to the scene.

Rosales-Renteria later put out a call on the radio for another unit to bring an alcohol-screening device to the scene. The officer later admitted that he had no reason to believe Vilchez Lazo was drunk but said an inspector told him “I want his DNA.”

In video captured on his body-worn camera, Rosales-Renteria told Vilchez Lazo he pulled him over because he saw him swerving. The officer later admitted he did not tell Vilchez Lazo the truth about the reason for the stop.

Neither Hicks nor Rosales-Renteria said they documented the purported illegal lane change until they were asked to write a supplemental report on July 25, 2018.

Prosecutors are scheduled to call additional witnesses on Tuesday before the judge makes a ruling on the case.

Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky

Candis MitchellSF Police