An Uber driver who raped a Villanova student he drove back to campus was sentenced to state prison

An Uber driver who raped a drunk Villanova University student in September 2024 after driving her back to her dorm was sentenced Monday to three to six years in state prison.

Mirvan Dinler, 28, must also register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, and also faces deportation to his native Turkey as a result of his conviction. Delaware County Court Judge Mary Alice Brennan barred him from working for ride-share services and from visiting Villanova’s campus.

Dinler, of Trappe, pleaded no contest to rape of an unconscious person in June for the incident, which Assistant District Attorney Danielle Gallaher said Monday demonstrated extreme callousness and lack of respect for human life.

Gallaher said Dinler has not shown remorse and told prosecutors that the woman had initiated their sexual encounter, which she said is patently false.

“This is inherently anti-social risk taking behavior: He was in a position of trust, and he decided to rape a stranger,” she said. “He saw a woman in a vulnerable state, and rather than help her, he decided to become every woman’s worst nightmare.”

Dinler’s attorney, Shaka Johnson, asked the judge for leniency, saying his client was deeply sorry for the events of that evening in 2024. The incident, Johnson said, was the result of “a series of bad decisions, back to back.”

Dinler, according to Johnson, had been molested as a child, and was in the United States on a student visa, pursuing a degree in computer science at West Chester University.

By entering the no-contest plea, Dinler did not admit guilt but did not dispute the prosecution’s statement of the facts in the case.

The woman, who was a senior at Villanova at the time, testified Monday that she woke up, disoriented, as Dinler was raping her. She said she was too terrified to fight back or call out for help — her only concern, she said, was to survive the assault.

She told Dinler he had acted like a monster, and in turn had treated her “like a discarded tissue.”

“You decided your desperation for satisfaction, for power, whatever your motivation, was more important than my life,” she said.

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, to celebrate a friend’s birthday.

The woman said she did not drink regularly, but on that night had three glasses of wine and two shots of liquor. After arriving at the bar in the city, she said she felt dizzy and ill, and decided to return home.

The woman ordered an Uber, and Dinler arrived in his Toyota Prius to pick her up, she said.

Surveillance footage from Villanova’s Commons residence hall complex showed Dinler escorting her inside, arm-in-arm, because she was too intoxicated to walk on her own

Prosecutors said Dinler’s DNA was a match to semen found on a towel and comforter taken from the woman’s dorm room.

In a tearful statement, Dinler apologized to the woman, saying he “shut down” after entering the woman’s dorm room and didn’t know what to do.

“I know the decisions I made were horrible as I look at it today,” he said. “I wanted to leave the room. I didn’t and I regret it.”

The woman said her life was completely derailed by that night. Her plans for her career, and her active social life on Villanova’s campus, were placed on hold.

Struggling with complications from the preventative, antiviral medication she was prescribed after the rape, as well as bouts of serious depression, the woman said she moved into her childhood bedroom to finish her senior year.

Through her tears, she described to Brennan, the judge, that those four walls became her prison cell, while Dinler remained free. Even now, two years later, she said she struggles with spending time among strangers, and worked hard to overcome aversion to physical touch.

“I survived. I regained control,” she said. “I proved I’m a real person, not a piece of meat for slimy low-lives.”