Man Accused of Metro Assault Was Indecent Exposure Suspect

Records show a man charged with trying to rape a woman last month on a Metro train outside the nation's capital had been identified as a suspect in an indecent-exposure incident that occurred earlier in April.

Police were in the process of obtaining an arrest warrant for 39-year-old John Prentice Hicks for indecent exposure when the alleged sexual assault happened April 12, Metro spokeswoman Sherri Ly told The Washington Post

Documents show Metro police used video recordings and a witness account to identify Hicks as the suspect who exposed himself April 2 on a train.

Hicks, of Washington, D.C., was arrested April 12 after a woman said she was attacked by a man with a knife. He faces charges including first-degree rape and was ordered held without bond Monday.

The victim told police she was asleep in the middle section of a rail car as it approached "either the Fort Totten or Takoma stations" about 10 a.m., according to court documents.

As the train continued, the documents say, the man she identified as Hicks approached her and asked her questions such as, "Do you have a boyfriend?" and "Are you going to Glenmont?"

Hicks then displayed a folding knife while the train was at the Forest Glen Station, according to the victim's statement.

He then enveloped the woman in a "bearhug," the statement reads. He forced her to another part of the rail car where he attempted to have sex with her and forced her to perform oral sex all while the knife was in his hand, she told police. At some point, a struggle over the knife left the victim with a cut to her finger, she said.

The victim told police she worried Hicks would kill her if she did not comply.

The grisly incident allegedly occurred one day after a 15-year-old boy was stabbed to death at the Deanwood Station, and weeks after another teen was shot at the Deanwood station, which is along the Orange Line in Northeast D.C.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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