Photo: BGR.com
Another shocking case against a Uber driver is drawing attention to the fact that the company is still behind in terms of making sure its policy on background checks effectively protects the very customers it serves.
Frederick Gaston, a Uber driver from Miami, stands accused of sexual battery on a physically incapacitated victim, a felony. His trial is scheduled to start next month, following events that unfolded last year on Labor Day weekend, when he picked up 2 drunk women and raped one on the way home, as she was slipping in and out of consciousness.
When police eventually caught him at the end of the month, The Miami New Times reports, he bragged that having a lot of intercourse with his female passengers was one of the “perks of the job.” After waving his Miranda rights, he admitted that the woman was so intoxicated she would slip in and out of consciousness, but then said that they had intercourse and that she was aware enough to initiate it.
Gaston’s crime could have easily prevented if Uber had done proper background checks, the victimn’s attorney argue. Before he started using his 2010 red Chrysler Town & Country van as a Uber ride, he had been accused of repeated assault on a woman and had a history of violence that indicated he wasn’t the right man for the job. After all, Uber prides itself with being the company that helps you get home safely when you’ve had too much to drink, but by hiring men like Gaston, it becomes the exact opposite of that.
“Uber markets itself as a safe ride home,” attorney Judd Rosen explains. But in reality, Uber is “putting chum in the water for sexual predators.”
In addition to the criminal charges, Gaston is also being sued in civil court, along with Uber. Rosen says that the latter is not a matter of “dollars and pennies” but rather a cry for change for the company. Instead of using third-party companies for its background checks, it should hand them over to the government – and use fingerprinting as well. This way, crimes like this would be avoided.
When police eventually caught him at the end of the month, The Miami New Times reports, he bragged that having a lot of intercourse with his female passengers was one of the “perks of the job.” After waving his Miranda rights, he admitted that the woman was so intoxicated she would slip in and out of consciousness, but then said that they had intercourse and that she was aware enough to initiate it.
Gaston’s crime could have easily prevented if Uber had done proper background checks, the victimn’s attorney argue. Before he started using his 2010 red Chrysler Town & Country van as a Uber ride, he had been accused of repeated assault on a woman and had a history of violence that indicated he wasn’t the right man for the job. After all, Uber prides itself with being the company that helps you get home safely when you’ve had too much to drink, but by hiring men like Gaston, it becomes the exact opposite of that.
“Uber markets itself as a safe ride home,” attorney Judd Rosen explains. But in reality, Uber is “putting chum in the water for sexual predators.”
In addition to the criminal charges, Gaston is also being sued in civil court, along with Uber. Rosen says that the latter is not a matter of “dollars and pennies” but rather a cry for change for the company. Instead of using third-party companies for its background checks, it should hand them over to the government – and use fingerprinting as well. This way, crimes like this would be avoided.
Google News