Uber Driver Arrested for Indecent Assault of Passenger

Norwood, MA – An Uber driver from Lawrence was arrested Saturday after an alleged indecent assault on one of his fares earlier that morning.

Junior Clarke, 31, was charged with indecent assault and battery on a person 14 or over; assault and battery; and accosting or annoying a person of the opposite sex after a 25-year-old woman told police he assaulted and accosted her while he drove her from Methuen to Norwood.

According to state police, the woman said she called Uber from a friend's house shortly before 5 a.m. and requested that she be driven to another friend's home in Norwood. She told police she had never taken Uber before and asked where she should sit; the driver allegedly offered her the front seat.

During the trip, the driver allegedly asked her personal questions about relationships and asked multiple times if he could kiss her as they drove along Routes 93 and 95. At one point he also asked the woman to add him on Snapchat and handed her his phone, she told police.

After his advances were rebuffed, the driver then allegedly began touching the woman inappropriately and making sexual statements toward her, at one point grabbing her arm. The woman told police she turned her body away in an attempt to block him from touching her, and he eventually ceased the behavior several minutes before she arrived in Norwood.

State police were alerted to the reported assault by a family member whom the woman had contacted and searched for the vehicle, a brown 2007 Toyota Camry. They attempted to intercept the driver at the woman's destination in Norwood, but he had already dropped her off and driven away by the time police arrived.

Officers escorted the woman to the Norwood Police Department, where she provided police with a description of the driver, as well as information from Uber and his social media accounts, which she saw when he handed her his phone.

The driver was later identified as Clarke, who turned himself in to state troopers after they contacted him on Saturday. He is expected to be arraigned in Woburn District Court Thursday.

In an emailed statement Wednesday, an Uber spokesperson said, "No person should have to go through what’s been described. We’ve been in contact with the rider to offer our support and are working with State Police to aid their investigation. The driver has been banned from the platform."

Image via Uber