Uber driver pleads no contest in the rape of a Villanova student inside her dorm room
Mirvan Dinler's DNA was found in semen left on the victim's comforter and towel, according to evidence presented Monday in Delaware County court.
An Uber driver pleaded no contest Monday in the rape of a Villanova University student inside her dorm room in 2024.
Mirvan Dinler, 27, was set to begin his trial before Delaware County Court Judge Mary Alice Brennan when he instead entered the no-contest plea to rape of an unconscious victim. Prosecutors said Dinler attacked the woman after driving her home from a bar in North Philadelphia and walking her to her dorm room as she drifted in and out of consciousness.
Semen found on a comforter and towel inside the dorm room were found to be a match to Dinler’s DNA, according to Assistant District Attorney Danielle Gallaher. And surveillance footage taken from cameras outside of the dorm building showed Dinler escorting her inside, arm-in-arm, because she was too intoxicated to walk on her own, the prosecutor said.
In agreeing to plead no-contest, Dinler did not admit guilt, but did not dispute the prosecution’s statement of the facts in the case.
Gallaher said she would seek a prison term of three to six years at sentencing in October.
Dinler’s attorney, Shaka Johnson, did not return a request for comment Monday. Previously, Johnson said there were “glaring, glaring cracks” in the woman’s account of what happened that night.
The woman, who was a senior at Villanova at the time, testified at a preliminary hearing that she woke up, drunk and disoriented, as Dinler raped her in September 2024. She said she was too terrified to fight back or call out for help.
Earlier that evening, she said, she had been drinking with friends on campus before the group headed to Warehouse on Watts, a bar in North Philadelphia.
The woman said she did not drink regularly, but on that night had three glasses of wine and two shots. After arriving at the bar in the city, she said she felt dizzy and ill, and decided to return home.
“I knew I wasn’t feeling good, and I didn’t want my friends to have to babysit me,” she said.
The woman ordered an Uber, and Dinler arrived in his Toyota Prius to pick her up, she said.
Her memory was spotty, she said, until waking up to find that Dinler was raping her.
After the assault, she said, Dinler returned to the dorm and loudly banged on her door, demanding that she pay a cleaning fee because she had vomited in his car during the ride.
Gallaher, the prosecutor, said there was evidence that Dinler, using the victim’s phone with her permission, sent a $150 payment to a friend of his through Venmo. That person then transferred the money to Dinler’s bank account.
