LOS ANGELES, June 4 (UPI) -- A driver for the ride-sharing service Uber has been arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and intent to sexually assault a woman he picked up Sunday night.
According to the Los Angeles Police Department, Frederick Dencer, 32, allegedly kidnapped a drunk 26-year-old woman in West Hollywood. The report stated that a valet at a nightclub asked Dencer to take the woman home, but she was too intoxicated to tell him her address. Uber released a statement saying that Dencer had not been logged in to the Uber system and wasn't operating on the company's platform at the time.
Dencer then apparently "took advantage of the situation and drove her to a cheap motel, which he had visited before, and carried her into the room," said Lt. Paul Vernon of the LAPD. "He slept right in the room. When she awoke, he let her leave, though he asked her to stay, according to the victim."
The woman then left the motel and called police from a 7-Eleven Monday morning saying she did not know the man in the room and had no recollection of how she ended up there. The woman was reportedly not assaulted or injured.
This isn't the first time a driver from the ride-sharing service has been accused of abusive behavior. In March, an Uber driver in Washington, D.C. was accused of raping a woman. A San Francisco man said an Uber driver assaulted him and shouted racist and homophobic slurs before ordering him to get out of the car.
"Ride-share services are chock-full of dangers, especially gaps in insurance and poorly-conducted third-party background checks," said David Sutton of Who's Driving You, a public safety watchdog group that monitors services like Uber and Lyft.
Uber said in a statement Tuesday that the company has suspended Dencer's account and is working with authorities to find out what happened. Dencer's bail has been set at $1 million.
