MIAMI – Miami police arrested a 32-year-old attempted armed sexual battery suspect Wednesday who they think may have targeted multiple homeless women.
Police accused Rodney Joseph of approaching a woman in the city’s Overtown neighborhood early Monday morning, offering her a ride to a shelter and, instead, sexually battering her at gunpoint.
According to an arrest report from the Miami Police Department, the 40-year-old woman was walking in the area of Northwest Third Avenue and 16th Street at around 12:30 a.m. when Joseph approached her.
Authorities said she accepted the ride, but realized Joseph wasn’t driving towards the shelter and tried to get out.
Police said he offered her money in order to show him her breasts, which she declined, telling Joseph she was “not a prostitute.”
The arrest report states he then held the car door shut, punched and choked the woman and drove the victim to a different location.
Joseph again demanded she expose her breasts, police said. When she declined for a second time, he pulled a gun from the center console, demanded she take out her breasts and said “I’m going to kill you.”
Police said the woman agreed and Joseph then grabbed the woman’s breasts, and then grabbed her neck and “pulled her head towards his penis.”
She was eventually able to escape in the area of Northwest Miami Court and 19th Street, running to a gas station and calling police.
Officers located Joseph, who lives just outside of North Miami, at Northeast 10th Avenue and 142nd Street Wednesday and arrested him on charges of armed kidnapping, attempted armed sexual battery and aggravated assault with a weapon, police said.
Joseph, listed in the arrest report as a Haitian national, was being held without bond at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center as of Thursday.
Investigators “believe there are other vulnerable, homeless female victims that may have been preyed upon by (Joseph) offering help to get them to a homeless shelter while wearing medical scrubs type clothing,” an MPD spokesperson said.
Police asked anyone who thinks they may have been a victim or who has information to call MPD’s special victims unit at 305-603-6300.
Anyone with information who wishes to remain anonymous can call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477.