Man picks up woman waiting for an Uber downtown and rapes her, DA says

A Worcester man was arraigned today on a charge that he picked up a woman who thought she was getting into an Uber, drove her around for a bit, then raped her early Saturday, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

Qabel Najeeb, 29, was ordered held in lieu of $10,000 bail at his arraignment in Boston Municipal Court on a rape charge, the DA's office reports. Should he make bail, he will have to wear a GPS device and observe a curfew between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. pending the outcome of his case.

According to the DA's office:

On Saturday at about 4:47 a.m. Boston police responded to Border Street in East Boston and spoke with a woman who told them that she ordered an Uber when leaving a downtown nightclub several hours earlier. The original Uber then was cancelled. The woman, 32, said she then entered another car she thought was an Uber. The driver, later identified as Najeeb, drove past Boston Common and then pulled over among some buildings near Storrow Drive. There the driver raped the woman. After the assault, he dropped the victim off on Border Street.

Najeeb was arrested Sunday based on video surveillance and a statement from the victim about the blue Corolla he was driving and what he looked like, the DA's office reports.

Innocent, etc.