Uber Driver Charged With Sexual Assault

By Jeff Todd

DENVER (CBS4)- An Uber driver suspected of sexual assault has been formally charged in an alleged attack on customers.

The Denver District Attorney has charged 43-year-old Luis Galeano-Bedon with two counts of sexual assault- victim incapable. He could face life in prison after a minimum sentence.

The victim and a friend were staying in Denver on Halloween night and arranged for a ride through Uber to lower downtown Denver. The driver gave the two women his personal cell phone and told them to call when they were ready to return to their hotel.

"They made what I think most of us would say is a pretty good plan, 'We don't want to drink and drive,'" said Lynn Kimbrough with the Denver District Attorney's Office. "Unfortunately the charges are alleging this man did not make it a safe night, that he attacked one of these women while she was in a state of intoxication."

The charges allege that in the early morning hours of Nov. 1, Galeano-Bedon picked up the woman and sexually assaulted one of them on the way back to their hotel. The women were drunk and both sat in the front passenger's seat of Galeano-Bedon's minivan.

At the hotel Galeano-Bedon followed the women inside and into their hotel room.

"The victim and her friend were able to confront him and scare him off and he left," said Kimbrough.

Galeano-Bedon was arrested this week and remains in custody on $50,000 bond. He is scheduled to appear in Denver County Court on Nov. 23 to be formally advised of the charges.

Jeff Todd joined the CBS4 team in 2011 covering the Western Slope in the Mountain Newsroom. Since 2015 he's been working across the Front Range in the Denver Headquarters. Follow him on Twitter @CBS4Jeff.