An Uber driver was arrested early Tuesday, hours after allegedly raping a University of Utah student.
The 22-year-old student had used the popular ride-hailing app Monday to request a lift to a location on the south end of the Salt Lake City campus.
She told university police that the male driver stopped the car in the area of Research Park and got into the backseat with her. She alleges that the man then raped her, according to a probable cause statement for his arrest.
A university spokesperson confirmed she is a student at the school. The driver is neither a student nor an employee at the U., the spokesperson noted. He is 39 years old, according to court documents.
The Salt Lake Tribune generally does not name suspects unless they have been formally charged with a crime.
According to the probable cause statement, the student said she was able to get out of the car after the alleged assault and had a friend pick her up. She reported the allegations shortly after, with police noting in the statement there is “substantial evidence.”
Campus police identified the man through his phone number on the Uber app and arrested him early Tuesday. His car is currently impounded, the university spokesperson said, and an investigation is ongoing.
The student has spoken with university victim-survivor advocates. Police are also waiting for her to go through two sleep cycles, which is considered best practice, before interviewing her again, the spokesperson said.
The man is currently being held in jail. Police noted in the probable cause statement that he said he wanted to return to Peru, where he is from.
Uber in a statement Thursday called the allegations “deeply disturbing.”
“This behavior has no place in our society or on the Uber platform,” the company said. “We removed the driver’s access to the platform as soon as we were made aware, and we have a dedicated team that is assisting law enforcement with their investigation.”
Uber has a history of alleged driver sexual assaults, with a large-scale lawsuit currently filed against the company by passengers who say they were harmed. As part of that court case, The New York Times reported in August, previously sealed documents revealed 400,181 Uber trips resulting in reports of sexual assault and sexual misconduct in the U.S. between 2017 and 2022.
Uber told The Times that it has added more safety features since then.
The report on the U.’s campus spurred new legislation from Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, that he announced Thursday.
Lee introduced a bill called the Flight Risk Reduction Act. The measure aims to prevent non-U.S. citizens who are accused of crimes from being able to flee the country by automatically triggering a detention hearing for those defendants.
As stated in the news release, the measure would categorize “non-citizen criminals as presumed flight risks.”
The news release identifies the Uber driver as a non-citizen. But nothing in the police documents indicates his status in the United States. It only says the man told officers he was born in Peru.
The measure comes as U.S. President Donald Trump has also pushed to crack down on immigration.