An offer to help fix a neighbor’s car turned into an unwanted sexual advance and led to the arrest of a 50-year-old Millport Avenue man.
He was arrested by warrant and charged with fourth-degree sexual assault following the April 10 incident.
Both the accused man and victim (who is 52)—who are neighbors at Millport Apartments—agree that he had helped fix her car on April 9, a Wednesday.
They disagree on just what happened the following day.
Both said that the man approached her and said they needed to go on a “test drive” to see if the vehicle was working properly.
The woman’s version is: On that drive—which took the pair onto the Merritt Parkway—he began asking personal questions that made her feel uncomfortable, put his hand on and between her thighs and began rubbing her. She told him she didn’t like that and to stop, even elbowing him away, according to a police report.
She pulled off of Exit 37 and drove straight down South Avenue to the New Canaan Police Department, according to Sgt. Peter Condos. There, she told police what had happened, but by the time they checked the car, the man was gone—this happened at about 10:30 a.m., police said. (She pulled into the police department by the first driveway, which is actually its exit, Condos said.) Surveillance video showed someone walking past but it wasn’t clear who that was.
Confronted by police weeks later (after they had a written statement from the victim and a warrant), the man initially denied that he’d been in the woman’s car at all on April 10—but later admitted it, Condos said, though he maintained that nothing untoward had happened.
Police served the warrant May 3.
The man was released on $1,000 bond and scheduled to appear May 12 in state Superior Court in Norwalk.
The Stamford-based Center for Sexual Assault Crisis Counseling and Education provides free, 24-hour confidential help to men, women and children who have experienced sexual assault. It serves Darien, Greenwich, New Canaan, Norwalk, Stamford, Westport, Weston and Wilton and be reached at 888-999-5545 for English and 888-568-8332 in Spanish.