A man has been charged with sexually assaulting a train passenger more than two years after the alleged attack was videoed by a bystander and shared on YouTube, where it went viral.
Fellow passenger Jasheem Smiley recorded the incident on his mobile phone and uploaded it to social media, but did not intervene when he saw the sleeping victim being groped by a stranger.
The victim, napping on a subway train in New York City in October 2012, awoke to find a man caressing her thigh and face and trying to kiss her.
She punched him and ran off – but only realised the extent of what had happened to her when a friend showed her the grainy YouTube footage.
The 18-second clip was followed by a second video days later in which Smiley defended his decision to film the attack. He said police had ignored the clip, which he gave them immediately, until it went viral.
“Why did it take 24 hours and a viral video for police to notice my cry for help?” he added in a comment under the video.
He didn’t try to stop the pervert, he added, because he did not know if the man was armed and was concerned for his own safety. He claimed he had tried to wake the victim, but was unsuccessful.
Forty-three-year-old Carlos Chuva, of Queens, has now been charged with first degree aggravated sexual abuse, it is reported.
