In January, the Boston Globe reported that a man posing as a ride service driver had kidnapped a woman leaving a Boston nightclub in December of 2019. He then drove her to a house in Rhode Island where he raped her. The man identified as Alvin R. Campbell Jr., was ordered to be held on $250,000 cash bail after he was arraigned on charges of kidnapping and rape in Boston Municipal Court. After initially being investigated for two additional sexual assaults that took place in Suffolk County, in 2016 and 2017, based on DNA evidence, Campbell now faces arraignment on seven similar cases dating to 2017 in Roxbury, South Boston, and Downtown according to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office reports.
The Suffolk County District Attorney’s office issued a statement saying:
The details of each account vary, but in all cases Campbell allegedly targeted the women at or near bars or other locations where intoxication had made them incapable of consenting or resisting. And in each case, the women believed they were with a ride share driver they had summoned.
Campbell last worked for Uber in 2016, but when his vehicle was seized in the first case, it was festooned with Uber stickers and logos. Most of the assaults took place in Campbell’s vehicle, and he also took video of five of the unconscious victims, according to prosecutors and sexual assault unit detectives who obtained a warrant to search his cellphone.
With no grand jury available to hear the extensive additional evidence during the COVID-19 pandemic, detectives from the Boston Police Sexual Assault Unit obtained the new complaints Thursday in order to lodge arrest warrants in the system until Campbell can be brought to face them in court. Further information about the allegations will become public at that time.
District Attorney Rachael Rollins noted that Campbell’s arrest was only the latest in a series of attacks on women by both active ride-share drivers and men pretending to be ride-share drivers. DA Rollins stated, “This long list of women – each targeted, assaulted, kidnapped, raped and/or murdered – is heartbreaking. Sexual violence is a form of hate crime and gender should be a protected category. It isn’t. Violence against women is not a woman’s issue, it is a civil rights issue. Men, we are calling on you to step up and intervene when you see questionable and criminal behavior. Speak to your sons. Real men don’t rape.”