A North Texas Uber driver arrested for sexually assaulting a minor has been released from jail on bond.
Robert Johnson III, 31, of Garland, was arrested on July 15 after the child’s mother reported the alleged incident to the authorities.
On July 9, Johnson was driving for Uber and picked up a 12-year-old unaccompanied rider around 2 p.m. in Frisco near 4200 Legacy Dr., per CBS News Texas. Johnson then purportedly pulled off the road and sexually assaulted the child.
The following day, the child told their mother about the assault. The mother filed a police report. The Plano Police Department’s Special Victims Unit then launched an investigation.
A judge issued a warrant for Johnson’s arrest on July 12 on charges of aggravated sexual assault of a child. He was taken into custody on July 15 and booked into Collin County Jail in McKinney.
Johnson was released from jail on Monday after posting a $200,000 bond.
When contacted by CBS, Uber said that the trip was not requested through a teen account. Uber teen accounts have additional safety measures in place, such as only being matched with highly rated drivers and live trip tracking features for parents.
“This monstrous behavior has no place in our society or on the Uber platform. We take reports of this nature very seriously and have permanently banned the driver. We have been in touch with the Plano Police Department regarding their investigation,” a spokesperson for Uber said to CBS.
In November of last year, a Dallas woman joined nearly two dozen others nationwide in a lawsuit against Uber over sexual assaults committed by drivers, per Fox 4 KDFW.
The Dallas woman fell asleep in the back of an Uber in 2021 and allegedly woke up to her driver fondling her.
The lawsuit called for Uber and other rideshare companies to remove drivers from their platforms once they receive serious complaints about them.
Data from Dallas’ crime analytics dashboard shows that as of July 22, there have been 143 reports of rape, 37 reports of sexual assault with an object, and 149 reports of fondling this year.
The Dallas Police Department has been laboring against a significant staffing shortage. Only around 3,000 DPD officers are fielded despite a City report calling for closer to 4,000 to adequately ensure public safety.
Moreover, DPD received far less taxpayer money than the police agencies of other high-crime cities, with City leaders approving a budget of just $654 million this fiscal year. The Dallas City Council approved spending far less taxpayer money on policing than its counterparts in other high-crime jurisdictions.