MIAMI – A homeless man is facing charges after he was caught on camera sexually battering a woman he’d found passed out in front of her Wynwood apartment building last month, authorities said.
According to an arrest report from the City of Miami Police Department, Joshue Romero, 42, was arrested Monday on charges of sexual battery on a physically helpless victim, grand theft and dealing in stolen property.
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Police said the incident was reported around 3:30 a.m. July 21 outside the Artem Apartments on Northwest 29th Street.
According to detectives, CCTV surveillance footage showed the victim, a 27-year-old woman, being dropped off and left in front of the building by an Uber driver.
After the driver dropped off the victim, she was seen throwing up before laying on the sidewalk, the report stated.
Detectives said moments later the video showed Romero approaching the unconscious woman and taking her phone, which was next to her before he continued walking.
About five minutes later, police said Romero was caught on camera lifting the victim’s skirt, then spreading her legs before performing oral sex on her while she was still unconscious.
Moments later, Romero was also seen lifting the victim’s shirt and placing his mouth on her left breast, police said.
According to detectives, shortly after fondling the woman’s breast, he began to perform oral sex for a second time on the victim before eventually getting up and walking away.
Authorities said another resident of the building found the woman and assisted her in getting into her apartment. That resident later asked the property manager if the woman was OK, which prompted the property manager to review the building surveillance footage.
When the property manager saw the woman being sexually battered in the footage, she called police, the report said.
According to the police report, the victim told investigators she later tried to call her phone and a man answered. The man told her his friend had “bad habits” and had her phone but would be willing to return it if she gave him money to buy food.
Detectives said the victim met the man outside a bank on North Miami Avenue and retrieved her cellphone but left out of the bank’s back door without paying the man.
The woman’s description of the man she met matched the description of Romero, the report stated.
On Sunday, the property manager of the Artem Apartments called 911, saying the man who was seen in the surveillance video sexually assaulting the woman was outside the building again, police said.
Police responded to the call and took Romero into custody.
Romero was shown a photo of himself near the scene of the incident moments before the sexual battery, which he identified as himself, authorities said.
According to jail records, Romero was booked into the Miami-Dade County Pre-Trial Detention Center around 11:15 p.m. Monday.