A Ugandan citizen working as an Uber driver has been issued a detainer from ICE officials after Massachusetts State Police arrested the man and charged him with raping a passenger.
State police received a report that a woman had been sexually assaulted by an Uber driver on Storrow Drive near the Hatch Memorial Shell in Boston about 1:15 a.m. Sunday. They located the man in question and arrested him without further incident.
Daudah Mayanja, 37, of Waltham, was charged with two counts of rape after allegedly assaulting a woman in his vehicle on the Esplanade.
Mayanja was booked at the Brighton Barracks before being transferred to the Boston Barracks and held on $25,000 bail, which has since been increased to $100,000. He remains held by MSP and will be arraigned Monday in Boston Municipal Court.
The victim was brought to an area hospital for treatment and State Police Crime Scene Services personnel and a state police chemist collected potential evidence for forensic analysis.
“What’s been reported is horrible and something no one should ever go through,” an Uber rep said in a statement. “We stand ready to support law enforcement with their investigation.”
Uber also said it’s increasing its safety features, and said riders can call 911 directly through the app while sharing their exact location with their GPS technology.
Uber announced its plans to up their efforts to compile statistics of sexual assaults involving drivers and passengers last November.
Former software engineer Susan Fowler, who was nominated for Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year,” wrote a viral blog post in 2017 attacking the inaction toward sexual harassment she claimed she faced at the company. The blog entry helped oust the company’s chief executive and co-founder. Meanwhile, scores Uber drivers have been arrested for sexual assault all over the world.
A 2018 report from CNN found that over 100 Uber and about 20 Lyft drivers have been accused of sexual assault and violent offenses since 2014.
