A judge agreed Thursday to a request by prosecutors to keep jailed indefinitely a man who police said admitted to sexually assaulting, groping or stalking at least five women near the University of Florida campus in recent weeks.
Authorities arrested Riley J. Washington Jr., 36, of Gainesville late last week after an urgent investigation by city and university police concluded that a number of recent episodes of sexual misconduct from as long ago as July were the work of one man.
Police arrested Washington about 1:30 a.m. on Sept. 12 after they saw him hiding in bushes near the Midtown area of bars and restaurants popular among UF students, then trying to flee toward UF’s nearby campus, according to court records.
He “admitted to all the offenses,” according to his arrest report. “Defendant stated he is in need of help and took accountability for his actions.”
On Thursday, Circuit Court Judge David Kreider agreed with prosecutors that Washington was too dangerous to release on bond until his criminal case is finished, meaning Washington will remain in the county jail indefinitely.
Washington’s public defender, Danielle Muller, said in court there was no evidence that Washington was the person involved in all the allegations. She requested that he be allowed to wear an ankle monitor so that he could return to his two jobs, live with his mother and continue to attend church.
The judge denied her request.
“Based on the statements, there is a substantial probability he committed the crimes,” Kreider said.
Washington could not be reached to discuss the allegations against him. The sheriff’s office does not allow inmates to speak with reporters without permission in writing from their own defense lawyer and a senior jail official.
The public defender’s office has a policy of not discussing cases against its clients.
Washington was facing a single felony charge of sexual assault and two misdemeanor charges of stalking and loitering or prowling. Police said they expect more charges to be filed in the case. A police spokesman, Art Forgey, said early Thursday that Washington had not been implicated so far in more than the five cases police had identified last week.
The intense manhunt for the suspect accelerated last week after a young woman, described by police as college-aged, told police that Washington touched her sexually as she squatted about 2:40 a.m. on Sept. 11 to urinate in the yard of her apartment after a night out at the bars. The woman was waiting for her roommate to return to unlock the door.
Police said he fled into the darkness. A UF student complained to police less than one hour later that a pickup driver was suspiciously circling the area around the university’s sororities. Police later traced that truck to Washington using a sophisticated network of cameras that captures the license plates of vehicles driving on or near UF’s campus.
Those incidents coincided with complaints from the parents of UF students who compared notes over a Facebook group about troubling experiences by their daughters in recent months. In court records, police said they had linked the same person to sexual misconduct against at least five young women, all college-aged.
In some cases, the suspect lifted their skirts and in some cases groped them, police said.
In court records, police also said Washington “has a history of stalking women since 2019,” but a review of criminal records nationwide found no such evidence. A judge convicted him in Gainesville in 2009 of felony grand theft, and he served three years of probation.
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