ST. LOUIS — Cristen Giangarra has spent years trying to move on from the night she was raped by a Lyft driver.
She spent days in her bed, unable to move. But she eventually made progress, she said. She took a few steps outside of her house. She sat in her car. She went back to work. She cried.
“I became an expert at pretending to be OK,” she said.
On Tuesday, former Lyft driver Larry D. Ward, 57, was sentenced to 13 years in prison for raping and kidnapping Giangarra. Charges said he picked her up on June 22, 2019, in the 1000 block of Clark Avenue in downtown St. Louis, turned off his ride-share location software and deviated from the route to her requested destination.
He then got into the back seat and raped her while she was intoxicated, charges said. Test results from a rape kit confirmed the presence of his DNA.
People are also reading…
Ward was set to face trial this week but instead pleaded guilty Monday to both of the charges. He did not speak at the hearing.
Giangarra returned to St. Louis, where she was living and working as a registered nurse in 2019, to speak before Ward was sentenced on Tuesday. She recounted how she felt isolated, anxious and distrustful after she was violated.
After leaving St. Louis, she said she spent years in a daze with a mind full of staticky noise. She declined invitations to events, especially when someone else was driving. She took medication to quell her anxiety. She missed out on joy and on life, she said.
“What this man took from me is irreplaceable and irreparable,” she said. “He has insidiously infiltrated my life.”
The Post-Dispatch does not typically name victims of sexual assault, but Giangarra went public with her story in 2020 after filing a lawsuit against Lyft and Ward.
The suit says the San Francisco-based ride-share company failed to conduct adequate background checks on its drivers. Ward had a criminal record dating back to the 1980s, including a 2002 sexual assault case that did not result in a conviction. That case is still pending.
But on Tuesday, Giangarra said she knew he must have faced “sorrow” and “despair” in his heart to have the capacity to violate someone else.
“There is no justice for what has happened,” she said.
Before issuing the sentence, Judge Scott Millikan told Giangarra he admired her strength and courage.
The judge told Ward that Giangarra trusted the Lyft driver to get her home safely that night, but “you violated that trust in the worst imaginable way.”