On Monday, Gainesville Police arrested a Gainesville Uber driver accused of groping his passenger earlier this month.
At about noon June 14, a woman in her 20s hailed a ride using the cab-service app on Southwest 16th Avenue and was assigned 66-year-old Edwin Ricci as her driver, according to a GPD arrest report.
When the woman got in Ricci’s car, she noticed him drive in the wrong direction down a dead-end street. GPD spokesperson Officer Ben Tobias said when the woman alerted Ricci, he told her, “We are just going for a little ride.”
Ricci didn’t turn the car around until he noticed the woman had been on a FaceTime video chat with her friend for the duration of the ride.
Tobias said Ricci asked the woman if her boyfriend would be jealous, as he moved his arm to stroke her hair.
After she pulled away, Ricci then shoved his hand down her jacket and grabbed her breast over her shirt, Tobias said.
She then hit his arm, got out of the van and ran away.
Two weeks ago, Uber co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick took an indefinite leave of absence and resigned amid investigations into the company over sexual harassment and other wrongdoings, and in the last few months the company has fired 20 of its employees over transgressions that included sexual harassment, according to The New York Times.
Police searched for Ricci until he eventually agreed to meet them with his lawyer and was subsequently arrested, Tobias said. The woman told police that Ricci was driving a beige 2008 Honda Odyssey at the time of the incident.
As of press time, Ricci remains in the Alachua County Jail where he awaits a Thursday morning court appearance. He faces a misdemeanor charge of simple battery.
Uber could not be reached for comment.
“Thankfully incidents like these are rare,” Tobias said.
