Man Pleads Not Guilty To Charges Of Trying To Drug Woman At Santa Monica Bar

SANTA MONICA (CBSLA.com) — A Los Angeles man was charged Tuesday with two felony counts for allegedly trying to slip a drug into a woman's drink at a Santa Monica hotel bar.

Michael Roe Chien Hsu, 24, pleaded not guilty to administering a drug and assault with intent to commit a sex crime.

Hsu's bail, which was initially set at $1 million, was cut to $350,000.

Three women said they saw Hsu trying to spike his date's drink Thursday while she was in a restroom at the Fig restaurant inside the Fairmont Miramar Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard, one of the trio wrote in a Facebook post.

"He pulled her glass toward him, kind of awkwardly, then he took out a little black vial," she wrote. "He opened it up and dropped something in. Then he tried to play it cool, like checking his phone and hiding the vial in his hand and then trying to bring it back down slyly."

"All three of us just did what we would do, what we think anyone would do," Sonia Ulrich said.

Monica Kenyon said she saw Hsu looking over his shoulder. "I can see he had something concealed in his hand. I kept watching and saw something fall from his hand into the wine glass," Kenyon recalled.

Ulrich immediate went to the restroom and found the woman and warned her. "I just said: 'This is going to sound really weird. But we just saw that guy you're with put something in your drink.'"

Ulrich then asked the woman how long she had known her date. The woman said Hsu was one of her closest friends, according Ulrich.

The three witnesses alerted the restaurant manager who called police.

Hsu is due back in court June 14 for a hearing to determine if there is enough evidence for him to stand trial.

If convicted, he faces up to six years in state prison, according to the District Attorney's Office.