DA: Man who pretended to be an Uber driver to kidnap and rape a woman in January now charged in seven more attacks

Alvin Campbell, 39, arrested in January on charges he raped a woman he picked up at the Harp downtown now faces arraignment on seven similar cases dating to 2017 in Roxbury, South Boston and Downtown, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

According to the DA's office:

The details of each account vary, but in all cases Campbell allegedly targeted the women at or near bars or other locations where intoxication had made them incapable of consenting or resisting. And in each case, the women believed they were with a ride share driver they had summoned.

Campbell last worked for Uber in 2016, but when his vehicle was seized in the first case, it was festooned with Uber stickers and logos. Most of the assaults took place in Campbell’s vehicle, and he also took video of five of the unconscious victims, according to prosecutors and sexual assault unit detectives who obtained a warrant to search his cellphone. 

The DA's office adds:

With no grand jury available to hear the extensive additional evidence during the COVID-19 pandemic, detectives from the Boston Police Sexual Assault Unit obtained the new complaints Thursday in order to lodge arrest warrants in the system until Campbell can be brought to face them in court. Further information about the allegations will become public at that time. 

Campbell has been held behind bars on $250,000 bail since January, lives in Cumberland, RI - to which he allegedly drove his January victim. He is the older brother of Boston City Councilor Andrea Campbell (Dorchester, Mattapan).

In a statement, DA Rachael Rollins noted the January arrest was only the latest in a series of attacks on women by both ride-share drivers and men pretending to be ride-share drivers:

have only been DA for nearly 19 months. This long list of women – each targeted, assaulted, kidnapped, raped and/or murdered – is heartbreaking. Sexual violence is a form of hate crime and gender should be a protected category. It isn’t. Violence against women is not a woman’s issue, it is a civil rights issue. Men, we are calling on you to step up and intervene when you see questionable and criminal behavior. Speak to your sons. Real men don’t rape.

Innocent, etc.