Suspect in northwest Bloomington rape faces additional charges after brief jail escape
In a news release issued on Wednesday, Oct. 2, Bloomington’s police department announced the arrest of a suspect in a rape that was committed towards the city’s northwest side in the early morning hours of Monday, Sept. 30.
According to the news release, on Tuesday afternoon, Rodrigo Perez Curiel was booked into the Monroe County jail on a charge of rape while armed with a deadly weapon and threatening the use of deadly force, which is a Level 1 felony. The book-in report indicates he is 21 years old.
According to the news release, after being transferred to the jail building at College Avenue, Curiel’s placement into actual custody at the jail was accomplished only after he first briefly escaped from the sallyport, which is the controlled entrypoint to the jail, then recaptured.
The news release says that while in the sallyport of the jail, waiting for transfer to a jail cell, one of the overhead (garage style) doors was opened and Curiel ran out of the sallyport in handcuffs. From the sallyport, he apparently headed west. According to the news release, it was on North Morton Street, which runs past Bloomington’s city hall, a block from the jail, where officers caught Curiel and tackled him to the ground.
Curiel has also been charged with escape, which is a Level 5 felony, and resisting law enforcement, which is a Class A misdemeanor.
The rape was called in by a woman who reported to police around 5:50 a.m. that she had been sexually assaulted by an unknown man. She told police she had been attacked from behind while walking near the roundabout on West 17th Street and forced into a nearby ditch, where she was assaulted.
The victim told police that the suspect had a box cutter and told her several times that he was going to kill her. She also said she tried to call 911, but the suspect took her cell phone from her.
Based on footage from nearby surveillance cameras, investigators were able to spot a vehicle that they thought was operated by the suspect before and after the attack. In the footage, investigators were not able to see the license plate number, but did manage to identify some characteristics of the vehicle, according to the news release.
Using the identifying characteristics together with Flock license plate readers in the area, investigators were able to get the license plate number, and identify the registered owner, according to the news release.
The description of the suspect given by the victim matched that of the registered owner, according to the news release. On Tuesday, investigators found the suspect’s vehicle in the 1200 block of North Maple Street and started surveillance.
Early Tuesday afternoon, a man was seen getting in the vehicle and driving away. When officers stopped the vehicle in the 1300 block of West 3rd Street, the driver, who identified himself as Rodrigo Perez Curiel, was taken into custody without incident, according to the news release. Curiel was then taken to the Bloomington police department for an interview.
