A former Uber driver is detained and facing criminal sexual assault and kidnapping charges after prosecutors said he attacked an 18-year-old woman who was leaving a graduation party, then told her she was too drunk to remember it.
Anthony Mele, now 47, was 44 when the attack allegedly occurred on June 10, 2023. Prosecutors said the woman did not have her phone at the party, so a friend ordered her an Uber ride home to Beverly. But the friend accidentally entered the wrong destination into the app. Mele picked the woman up at 11:39 p.m. and almost immediately began making comments about her appearance, prosecutors said.
When they arrived at the wrong address, a few blocks from where the woman intended to go, the victim told Mele about the error. Prosecutors say he then asked her to move to the front seat, and she complied. For the next 20 to 30 minutes, according to prosecutors, Mele drove around the area and repeatedly reached over to touch her leg while she kept moving to avoid contact.
He then allegedly drove to a secluded area, climbed over the center console, and sexually assaulted the woman. Prosecutors say she was crying, told him no, and tried to push him away, but he was significantly larger, and she was unable to stop him. The assault lasted approximately five minutes before he returned to the driver’s seat and continued driving.
Prosecutors say the victim confronted Mele, warning him that the Uber app could be used to identify him. As they were pulling onto a street, a friend who had been searching for the woman pulled up alongside the car. Mele allegedly brushed off the woman’s second warning about being traced through the app, telling her that she was too drunk to remember anything by morning. Ring camera footage allegedly showed Mele’s vehicle dropping the victim off at home at 1:15 a.m.
The victim reported the assault the following morning to two people and went to a hospital. Both she and the friend who encountered her after the assault identified Mele in separate photo line-ups, according to prosecutors. Police arrested him five weeks after the incident, collected a DNA sample, and released him pending the test results.
Prosecutors say Mele’s DNA was found on the victim’s cheek and wrist bracelet. The victim had reported during the investigation that he had licked her face and neck during the attack. But testing of material recovered from other areas of the woman, who was in a consensual relationship at the time, came back to a different man, prosecutors said.
Judge John Hock detained Mele, who is charged with two counts of criminal sexual assault and kidnapping.
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