CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — An Uber driver accused of sexually assaulting a woman who had summoned the ride-sharing service was ordered held without bail Wednesday.
Alejandro Done, 46, of Boston, waived his right to a dangerousness hearing in Cambridge District Court and will be held until his next scheduled court hearing Jan. 26.
He has pleaded not guilty to charges of rape, assault to rape, kidnapping, and assault and battery. He didn’t speak during Wednesday’s hearing.
Prosecutors say Done picked up the woman from a Boston residence Dec. 6. The woman had been out with friends and had summoned an Uber driver to take her to her Cambridge home.
Done drove to a location the woman was not familiar with, pulled over in a secluded area and climbed into the back seat with her, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors say he struck her, choked her, locked the car doors and covered her mouth so she couldn’t scream. Authorities say Done sexually assaulted her after a struggle.
Cambridge police identified the suspect through Uber company records.
It’s unclear if Done used information he gleaned as an Uber driver to target the victim, the Middlesex district attorney’s office said.
“Ride shares may be a new frontier in public transportation, but the age-old wisdom still applies: Know who is taking you and where and act on your instincts to get away if you have any feeling at all that a situation seems suspicious,” District Attorney Marian Ryan said.
In a statement, a spokeswoman for the San Francisco-based Uber called the alleged assault “a despicable crime.”
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Kind of fitting that an accused rapist winds up in jail pending trial over the Christmas holiday. I’m not shedding a tear, given how many young women in Boston will be looking for taxi or Uber rides over the next week or two.
If this guy was employed by Uber, I can see millions of dollars in lawsuits coming Uber’s way in the new year. Although public taxi services may be over-regulated and over-taxed with fees and all sorts of other local ordinances, it’s time for both taxi services and firms like Uber to move ahead together, using mobile phones to summon both, do background checks on all drivers, keeping vehicles safe, and still providing a free market for competition in rates charged. For too long, major cities have relied too heavily on license fees for taxi services as a source of revenue, when all that licensing of transportation like that should do is pay for itself as a government’s rightful registration of all vehicles and security clearance of drivers, not a pot of gold and source of corruption in taxi licensing.