Press Release
Smith quoted about Sami's Law in Trenton Times piece on ride-share safety‘Concerns grow as predators pose as drivers’Ted Sherman For Times of Trenton The 24-year-old victim had called for an Uber at a Manhattan bar and climbed into a waiting black SUV. The California woman had no memory of what happened after she got in, but said she woke up disoriented in a cheap motel room off Route 1 and 9 near Newark Liberty International Airport. The man who drove her there, who was not an Uber driver, is now facing charges of sexual assault. The criminal case marked just the latest in a series of similar incidents involving assaults by men posing as ride-share drivers. “It looks like a new kind of operation for predators,” said John A. Azzarello of Morristown, the victim’s attorney. “They see these women leaving the bar at closing time and are vulnerable.” Earlier this month, police said a 21-year-old woman was assaulted near the University of Delaware campus by a man who identified himself as a ride-share driver and asked if she needed a ride. Police said the woman had not called for a ride, but got into the vehicle and was forced at knifepoint to perform a sex act. In April, authorities in Boston said an actual Uber driver was accused of assaulting a woman after picking her up at a bar in Somerville, Massachusetts. And in March, University of South Carolina student Samantha Josephson of Robbinsville, was killed after she got into a car she had mistaken for an Uber. Josephson, 21, a political science major who was preparing for graduation, had planned to go to law school at Drexel University in Philadelphia in the fall. The attacks associated with ride-sharing have led to increasing concerns nationwide, and campaigns on campuses and by the industry to check the driver and the car before they get into any vehicle. Josephson’s parents have advocated for legislation to aid in identification of ride-sharing vehicles, a cause taken up by Rep. Chris Smith, R-4th Dist. “This tragic story cries out for federal legislation to protect customers from predators posing as fake rideshare drivers—something the Josephson family is courageously championing in order to ensure that others do not suffer the pain they themselves live with every day,” Smith said Monday. “I am working hard with the Josephsons, and Sen. Ben Cardin, to enact a federal “Sami’s Law” to require common sense life-saving measures such as a scannable ‘quick response’ (QR) code on ride-share vehicle windows, both front and rear license plates for rideshare cares, and visible windshield signs.” An Uber spokeswoman said the company has been running ads in campus newspapers and outdoor ads around colleges on its so-called Check Your Ride campaign, but is now going beyond that with ads in regular newspapers with a wider circulation, including a full-page ad recently in The Star-Ledger. When requesting a trip through the Uber app, riders receive the driver’s photo, name, the car make and model and license plate number. If the information doesn’t match up, riders should not get into the vehicle, the company said. The alleged assault at the Newark Liberty motel was first reported to police back in December 2017, but only recently came to light after detectives in Elizabeth moved last month to arrest Khalid R. Muhammad, 33, of Brooklyn, on multiple charges of sexual assault. A spokesman for the Union County Prosecutor’s office said there has yet to be an indictment, and a Superior Court hearing on the case has been scheduled for May 29. An attorney for Muhammad did not return a call for comment. According to an affidavit of probable cause filed in Elizabeth Municipal Court in connection with the case, the accuser had been traveling with her father on a return trip back home to California. During an overnight lay-over of their flight at Newark Liberty, she left her father at a hotel at the airport to meet friends in New York for dinner and drinks. She told investigators the group had left a bar in the Bowery sometime after 3 a.m. and she had ordered an Uber to pick her up and return her to Newark Liberty Airport. What happened next was pieced together by video surveillance recordings and witnesses. According to Azzarello, who was retained by the victim’s family to serve as her advocate here in New Jersey, the young woman had no recollection of what happened after she walked outside the bar. But he said Muhammad could be seen inside on a surveillance video, although there appeared to have been no interaction between the two at the bar. A second surveillance camera outside the bar, though, caught him speaking with her, before they walked off together, according to the affidavit. Both were captured on surveillance video arriving at an airport highway motel not long afterward. The victim told police she woke up in the motel room and ran into the lobby to get help. The affidavit said another man waiting in the lobby asked if she needed help, when Muhammad also came into the lobby, he claimed she was his girlfriend. When she rebuffed him, the affidavit said he drove away in a black SUV. The woman was driven by two bystanders to meet her father at the airport, and they flew back to California. She called police and went to the hospital after landing. Azzarello did not know why it took more than a year to bring charges, but said there was DNA testing that took months to complete. Meanwhile, he wonders if there might have been other victims. |