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A man posing as an Uber driver, who said he was driving on a family member’s account, was arrested on suspicion of raping a 15-year-old girl outside a school in Southgate late last month.
The horrifying, traumatic ordeal unfolded on October 23 after the teen’s mother, whose first name was Estela, ordered a rideshare to drop her daughter off at school.
The victim said the sexual assault continued for several minutes just outside Southgate High School after the man got into her back seat and overpowered her.
“He grabbed her by the neck, pinned her against the seat and pulled down her pants,” Estella told KTLA’s Sandra Mitchell.
South Gate High School is shown in this undated file photo. (KTLA)
The girl’s mother added that she noticed the ride was taking longer than usual, it was past her drop-off time and her daughter wasn’t responding to calls or texts.
After the assault, the girl, a sophomore in high school, called her sister.
“She was like, ‘Something really bad happened in the Uber car,'” Estela said. “She explained that this person had locked her in the car and she couldn’t open the door. He was too heavy and she couldn’t push him away.”
The boy’s mother said the man was not the registered driver and was pretending to be someone else.
“I had the license plate. I had the color of the car. I had a picture of him, so I asked my daughter, ‘Is this him?’ The daughter said, “No, Mom.” That’s not who he is,” she said. “He said he was using his brother’s account and she didn’t know his name.”
After Los Angeles Police Department investigators tracked down the suspect, authorities said he confessed to the crime, but claimed the incident was consensual. A suspect has not been identified at this time, but he may be arrested and charged with crimes including statutory rape.
In a statement to KTLA, Uber issued the following statement:
“The driver’s behavior is appalling and has no place on the Uber platform. We take these types of reports very seriously and as soon as we learned of it, we removed the driver’s access to the platform. We have a dedicated team to assist law enforcement in their investigations.”
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As for Estela, she said she feels a lot of guilt for leaving her teenage daughter in the car and wishes Uber would add safety measures for other passengers.
“There should be a system for facial recognition, like fingerprints or something,” she said. “We need to have systems in place to know that the person in that vehicle is safe.”
The suspect in the case was released the next day after pleading not guilty and remains free on bail, officials said.
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