The woman was on her way to work, listening to headphones and sitting on an aisle seat in a near-empty MAX train car when 56-year-old Carl Robinson allegedly assaulted her.
He stood over the woman and shoved her toward the window as if to take the seat next to her, swearing at her and calling her “little girl,” according to an affidavit of probable cause. Robinson allegedly spit in her hair and kissed her on the head and grabbed it, holding his fingers in the shape of a gun to her head.
The woman fought back. He grasped her head and she screamed loudly when Robinson reached back to his belt, as if to pull out a weapon. When the train came to a stop at the Denver/Kenton station in North Portland, Robinson got off the train, according to the affidavit. A nearby passenger approached the woman to tell her that Robinson had been fondling himself before he attacked her.
When Portland police arrived, they said, they found an ID on the train car floor -- it was Robinson’s, fallen in the alleged scuffle.
The woman told police “that is 100% him,” according to the affidavit.
Prosecutors indicted Robinson on six charges Wednesday for the Oct. 2 incident. There is an active warrant for his arrest.
The charges include two counts of felony coercion, misdemeanor sex abuse in the third degree, harassment, menacing and interfering with public transportation.
While sex offenses made up just 1.2% of crimes on TriMet transportation in 2017, the rate of crimes on TriMet transit increased from 2016 to 2017.
More of those crimes occur on MAX trains than TriMet buses. In 2017, there were 11 sex offenses committed on MAX trains.
-- Emily Goodykoontz; 503-221-6652; egoodykoontz@oregonian.com