Cops arrest man who sexually assaulted a sleeping woman on a New York subway train after another passenger recorded the attack and put it on YouTube instead of intervening to stop the assault [Video]

by Terresa Monroe-Hamilton | March 24, 2015 10:40 am

It took more than two years to nail this scum[1]? Really? First off, I would never, ever nap on public transportation. That’s asking for it. Lopez must have been inebriated if she slept through so much of the assault. I would wake instantly. 10 people watched this go down… they should all be tracked down and charged as accessories to the crime. The guy who filmed it is saying he did all he could – kicking her to wake her up, filming and then getting the conductor afterwards. He says he feared for his personal safety. That’s cowardly. There are times when you do the ‘unsafe’ thing and stop someone else from doing something heinous just because it is the right thing to do.

From the Daily Mail:

In October 2012, Elisa Lopez was sexually assaulted while napping on a subway train in New York City, and the entire incident was caught on video and spread online like wildfire.

Late last week, more than two years after the shocking attack, Ms Lopez was finally vindicated when police apprehended her alleged molester, identified as 43-year-old Carlos Chuva.

The Queens resident was arrested last Thursday and charged with first-degree felony aggravated sexual assault.

According to a criminal complaint cited by Gothamist[2], the suspect admitted that he was the attacker when officers showed a screen grab from the infamous subway video.

The vile attack took place at around 4am October 20, 2012, aboard a downtown 4 train near Lexington Avenue and 42nd Street in Manhattan.

Elisa Lopez, then a 21-year-old member of the Air National Guard, was on her way downtown to meet her boyfriend after attending a party in The Bronx when she briefly dozed off on the train, instinctively clutching her purse.

She woke up moments later to discover a stranger caressing her thigh and face and trying to kiss her.

The terrified straphanger punched the pervert in the face and fled the subway.

She did not realize the extent of the sexual assault she had endured until a work friend sent her the graphic video shot by a fellow passenger aboard the 4 train.

The grainy cell phone footage recorded by Brooklyn man Jasheem Smiley depicts a middle-aged man dressed in a faded denim jacket and jeans shoving his hand under the sleeping woman’s skirt and groping her.

The 18-second clip of the attack quickly went viral, earning Smiley public censure for capturing the assault on his iPhone instead of trying to stop it.

Smiley released another video on his YouTube channel just days later defending his actions that night.

‘There were 10 other people on the train that didn’t do anything,’ he explained. ‘I was the one that did the most.’

Smiley pointed out that after the groper got off the train, he notified the conductor about what happened and went to the police with the video.

But according to the man, officers became interested in the case only after he uploaded the footage online and it attracted media attention.

The assault witness explained that had he physically intervened, the suspect could have accused him of attacking him without any provocation.

Smiley also claimed he was concerned for his own safety because he did not known if the middle-aged pervert had a gun or a knife or him.

‘God knows I did the best I can,’ he said in the video.

He did mention that he repeatedly tried waking Lopez, but the woman continued sleeping after a night out drinking with friends.

On her part, Elisa Lopez broke her silence about the attack this past December, telling Cosmopolitan[3] that she was in disbelief when she first saw Smiley’s footage.

‘I felt sick to my stomach. I was yelling, screaming. I was hysterical,’ she recalled.

Determined to see her abuser behind bars, Lopez released a video of her own explaining the circumstances of the attack and launched a Facebook campaign appealing to fellow users for help in bringing the subway groper to justice.

Lopez said she has been grappling with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and night terrors for the past two years. She also cannot bear using the subway.

Initially, she was hesitant to seek psychological treatment for fear of being ejected from the Air National Guard, but after realizing she was having suicidal thoughts, Lopez decided to go and find herself a therapist.

To give Lopez credit, when she did wake up to what was happening to her, she punched the dirt bag and fled the subway. The police didn’t really pursue this until it went viral on social media. Fail. They had the video and witnesses. They could have aggressively gone after this molester. No way should it have taken over two years to arrest him. As for Lopez, I don’t blame her for now fearing the subway. This will mess her up for a long time, I would wager. Prison is too good for the likes of her attacker – I hope he is met with more justice than the court doles out. People need to stop taking so many selfies and videos and concentrate on doing the right thing. This is just horrific behavior.