A 34-year-old Tukwila man who King County prosecutors say posed as an Uber driver was charged Monday with first-degree rape, accused of raping an intoxicated woman in the back seat of his car in December after picking her up outside a Ballard bar.
Israel Ramos Islas is also being investigated in connection with at least two other cases in which he posed as an Uber driver, the charges say. Ramos, who was arrested Wednesday, remains jailed in lieu of $750,000 bail, jail and court records show.
Prosecutors allege Ramos Islas kidnapped the now 27-year-old victim after he lured her into his car by claiming he was her Uber driver.
According to the charges:
On Dec. 15, the woman's friend ordered an Uber for her and the woman went outside a Ballard bar and asked several drivers in waiting cars if they were there to pick her up. The driver of the vehicle last in line said "yes" and she got in the back of a dark-colored sedan. She later told detectives the driver said, "I will take you home but we're going to have some fun first."
Her memory faded but she came to while she was being raped in the back seat, with the driver on top of her in the parking lot of a White Center church, say the charges.
When she arrived home, her motion-activated, doorbell camera captured footage of the woman -- who appeared intoxicated and stumbled to her door -- and the suspect standing behind her. The footage showed he had the woman's keys and phone in his pockets and handed them to her after she couldn't find them in her purse.
The next morning, she pieced together that she had been raped and went to Harborview Medical Center for a sexual-assault evaluation. A King County sheriff's detective later confirmed that the man who picked her up was not a real Uber driver, according to the charges.
Last week, the Sheriff's Office released the video footage to the media and a few hours later, Ramos Islas and his wife went to the Burien Police Department so he could "clear his name," the charges say. A detective took his information and the couple left.
"Israel and his wife were not satisfied with their attempt to clear Israel's name at the police station," so he decided to go to the victim's house to confront her, say the charges. The woman's roommate answered the door and called the woman, who was down the street and could see Ramos Islas at her door. Terrified, she called the detective investigating her case and the detective -- who then drove to the woman's house -- told her to call 911.
The case detective contacted Ramos Islas, who agreed to speak to the detective and returned to the police station. He was arrested at a Kent law office the next morning.
The day Ramos Islas was arrested, a 32-year-old Seattle woman called police to say the same man seen in the video had posed as an Uber driver when he picked her up outside a different Ballard bar in August. They stopped for fast food on the way to the woman's apartment and she took a selfie with the driver -- and later gave the photo to detectives, who say the man appears to be Ramos Islas.
The charges say soon after dropping the woman off, the driver went to her door to ask if she'd forgotten her phone in the car and tried to push his way into the building. She was able to shove the door closed, automatically locking it.
That woman later picked Ramos Islas out of a police photo montage, according to the charges.
A third woman posted a video on Reddit, which was seen by a detective, of an incident that happened in December. The 22-year-old told police she was waiting for an Uber when a man claimed he was her driver. The woman, who refused to get in his car, began recording their interaction "because she thought he was being creepy," the charges say.
Detectives are now working to determine if Ramos Islas is the man in that video.
