Long-distance sleuthing nets arrest in allegation from 2014

Las Vegas police have made an arrest in a six-year-old sexual assault case using DNA testing and persistence, with detectives tracking down both the victim and the suspect in different states.

The sexual assault originally was reported to police in February 2014. A woman said she was partying with friends outside her apartment near South Commerce Street and West Philadelphia Avenue, then went inside her apartment and passed out.

“When she came to, she saw that one of her neighbors, by the name of Alfredo, was on top of her,” a police report states.

The case went cold for years, with the alleged victim initially indicating she was unwilling to pursue the matter, but Clark County Detention Center records now show that a suspect is in jail in the case. Alfraido Zeyouma, 45, faces a single count of sex assault.

In the 2014 case, the woman went to University Medical Center for a sexual assault examination after the attack. A DNA sample was collected during the examination, but the woman later walked out of the hospital and told police she did not want to pursue the matter.

More than four years later, in November 2018, detectives with the Metropolitan Police Department’s sexual assault detail were notified that the evidence collected in 2014 at the hospital had been processed and that the DNA collected was matched to Zeyouma, an arrest report states.

Police tracked down the woman in the southeastern United States, and she agreed to work with authorities.

“It was not until she was recently contacted by detectives and informed of the DNA findings that she actually realized she was sexually assaulted,” a detective wrote in an arrest report. “(She) said she never consented to any sexual act with any person.”

The woman recounted how the man who assaulted her had previously asked for her phone number during an encounter at the apartment complex where she lived. She also once saw the man “standing on his apartment balcony, staring at her. (She) said the incident made her feel uncomfortable.”

Police confirmed that at the time of the assault in 2014, Zeyouma lived “directly across the street from the identified scene.”

The woman was shown a photo of Zeyouma and identified him as her assailant. A criminal history check for Zeyouma showed “a prior investigation and arrest for sexual penetration foreign object with force” in San Bernardino, California, the report states. That case was eventually dismissed because insufficient evidence.

He also is registered in Nevada as a sex offender, which stems from an attempted burglary case in which he pleaded guilty. In that case, he was accused of going into a woman’s apartment, “licking her back” and demanding sex.

There have been a number of arrests recently in old sexual assault cases. In January, North Las Vegas police charged Clifton Dawson, 63, with sexually assaulting a woman in 1997. Also in January, 19-year-old Dwayne Downing, of Las Vegas, was arrested in the 2016 sexual assault of a minor. And in December 2018, Las Vegas police arrested Kelvin Macklin, then 33, on charges stemming from a 2012 sexual assault.

Police obtained a warrant and contacted Fort Worth, Texas, police to locate Zeyouma. The exact circumstances of his arrest were not detailed, but he was booked into the Clark County jail on Feb. 5.

A preliminary hearing in the case is scheduled for Thursday.

Contact Glenn Puit at gpuit@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0390. Follow @Glennatrj on Twitter.