Authorities have arrested the man they believe is responsible for an August 2005 sexual assault in Ocean Beach.
The suspect, Abraham Shorey, 25, was arrested in the Normal Heights neighborhood May 5 after investigators picked up on a false name he gave when stopped and released for a traffic violation in Chula Vista May 2.
Shorey was also wanted in New York for a series of sexual assaults that occurred in 2004 near the campus of Cornell University in the Collegetown neighborhood of Ithaca. He was dubbed as the Collegetown Creeper and fled the state before authorities there had a chance to arrest him.
He was subsequently featured on America’s Most Wanted on January 7, 2006.
A detective with the San Diego Police Department’s Sex Crimes Unit was able to obtain a voluntary DNA sample from Shorey during his stay in a San Diego jail on a federal arrest warrant.
According to SDPD Sgt. David Nisleit, the sample matched DNA from the sexual assault case in Ocean Beach in August 2005.
That incident involved a 20-year-old woman who awoke to find a man about to sexually assault her. After she fought with the suspect, he ran away.
Nisleit said Shorey has been officially transferred into San Diego custody from the federal government and will face charges of sexual assault, attempted rape and burglary.
His bail has been set at $1 million pending his arraignment tentatively scheduled for June 7.
Shorey will first face trail in San Diego before being extradited to New York authorities. Nisleit said District Attorneys from both jurisdictions agreed that Shorey should first be tried in San Diego since the charges here are more serious.
“New York is still very adamant that they want him to be tried there,” Nisleit said.
Last August, Shorey surfaced in Eugene, Ore., where he was arrested for a minor violation. However, he gave police a different name and was released before a fingerprint analysis could connect him to the crimes in New York.
A similar set of events later occurred in Chula Vista, when he was issued a ticket for driving without a license. He was released after giving officers another fake name, but when his fingerprints where run through the system and linked to his crimes in Ithaca, investigators with the San Diego Regional Fugitive Task Force were able to track him to an address in the central San Diego neighborhood of Normal Heights.