A South Florida Uber driver was arrested for allegedly inappropriately touching a teen passenger, authorities said.
Jose Miguel Perez-Molina, 39, of North Miami Beach, was arrested Tuesday on a charge of lewd and lascivious conduct on a child under 16, records showed.
According to an arrest report, the alleged incident happened Sunday after the teen requested an Uber via the Uber teens app for a ride from Aventura to Sunny Isles Beach.
Miami-Dade Corrections
Miami-Dade Corrections
Jose Miguel Perez-Molina
She was picked up by Perez-Molina, who matched the description in the Uber app and who gave her the correct PIN, the report said.
The teen said they were having a normal conversation when Perez-Molina started asking her if she was single and she replied yes, the report said.
Perez-Molina told her she was lying, adding “How could a girl like you be pretty and single,” the report said.
During the ride, he asked how old she was and she replied 15, to which he said “Oh that’s a problem I’m 39 years old,” the report said.
She said Perez-Molina kept bringing up the boyfriend question and at one point, he stopped and put his hand on her knee while “slightly caressing it,” the report said.
Perez-Molina allegedly told her she had something on her face and touched her face while telling her she has pretty eyes, and he also noted a scratch on her arm, touched it and asked “Who scratched you? I can take care of you,” the report said.
The teen said he asked her if she wanted to sit in the front seat, and after she declined they started driving again but he continued to make inappropriate comments.
“You make me nervous, you know what, since you don’t have a boyfriend, I can teach you how to kiss. Let’s park, let’s do something and I can teach you how to kiss,” he allegedly told her, according to the report.
She said she kept telling him she was only 15 and he kept telling her she was pretty, and she became “unsettled” and was “scared that something worse would happen while she was riding with him,” the report said.
Once she got to her destination, she said she rushed out of the vehicle crying and told her friend what happened.
The report said the teen had audio recorded some of the conversation in the car while she was in fear for her safety.
“I would wait for you, oh since you don’t have a boyfriend I could show you how to kiss, let’s give each other a kiss and try it out,” Perez-Molina said in the recording, according to the report.
The teen can be heard saying “no” and telling him she was 15.
Perez-Molina was booked into jail and appeared before a judge on Wednesday, who appointed him a public defender and set his bond at $7,500 but said he has an immigration hold.
An Uber spokesperson released a statement on Wednesday about the arrest.
“What this rider experienced is deeply disturbing. The safety of teen riders on Uber is paramount and we take reports like this very seriously,” the statement read. “We removed the driver’s access to the app as soon as this was reported to us, and our dedicated team is standing by to assist law enforcement however we can.”