A taxi driver has been arrested and charged with sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl to whom he allegedly had offered a free ride, Channel 2 Action News reported.
The girl was walking along Roswell Road in Buckhead the afternoon of June 9 when a minivan taxi stopped, and its driver, Pesure Alshahapy, offered her a ride, police said. The girl said she was going to Alpharetta.
“She told him she didn't have any money for a ride, and he said that's OK, I'll give you a ride for free,” Officer Lisa Holland, Roswell police spokeswoman, told Channel 2.
The girl allegedly got into Alshahapy’s vehicle, which had two fare-paying passengers at the time. (Neither Channel 2 nor the AJC identifies victims of sexual assaults.)
After the 55-year-old driver from Tucker dropped of his fares, “on the way down Ga. 400, he made sexual advances towards [the girl], stated rubbing her thigh,” Holland said.
Alshahapy forced the teen to perform a sex act on him, Holland said.
“She was very afraid and briefly complied with his request,” the police spokeswoman said.
The girl escaped from the cab near Ga. 400 and Holcomb Bridge Road and called police. She gave investigators a description of the cab and its driver, and police arrested him Thursday.
Alshahapy was charged with criminal attempt to commit sodomy and sexual battery and is being held without bond in Fulton County jail, according to Fulton County Sheriff’s records.
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