Police make arrest in restroom assault case
Suspect identified from surveillance video, police say
Police have arrested a man suspected of following a woman into the restroom of a northeast Albuquerque office building and sexually assaulting her two weeks ago.
Detectives arrested 47-year-old Michael Joe Chavez last Friday after a tipster recognized him from surveillance footage that had been released to the public, according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court. He is charged with criminal sexual penetration.
According to the complaint, on Feb. 7 a woman called police saying a man had assaulted her in an office building near Carlisle and Candelaria NE.
She said shortly after 5 p.m. she saw the man at the water fountain as she went into the restroom. As she was in one of the stalls she heard someone enter the room and then saw him peer over the stall wall.
She yelled at him to get out but instead he then “broke through” the door, according to the complaint.
The woman said he pushed her down and sexually assaulted her. She screamed at least five times, and he ran out of the restroom.
Ten days later, a police spokesman released a clip of surveillance footage of the man, saying he was wanted for questioning. A tipster identified him as Chavez, according to the complaint.
Detectives discovered Chavez lives at a group home for developmentally disabled adults about a mile from the office building.
Chavez has been diagnosed with cocaine-induced psychosis, anti-social disorder and a traumatic brain injury but he is his own legal guardian, according the complaint. The staff at the home told detectives he had been allowed to go out by himself for “alone time” and was gone during the time of the attack.
When detectives interviewed Chavez he was wearing the same clothes that he could be seen wearing in the surveillance video, according to the complaint. He didn’t answer their questions after they told him they had him a video of him entering the office building.
Chavez is being held in the county jail on a $50,000 bond.