BLOOMINGTON — Bloomington Police arrested a man they say raped a woman and held her at knife point early Sunday Morning.
Rodrigo Perez Curiel has been charged with three counts of rape while armed with a deadly weapon or threatening the use of deadly force, a Level 1 felony; strangulation, a Level 6 felony; and resisting law enforcement, a Class A misdemeanor.
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According to Bloomington police, a woman reported she had been attacked and thrown into a ditch near the roundabout on W 17th Street just before 6 a.m. The woman told police she was walking to a nearby gas station to get a drink.
She reported that Curiel was armed with a box cutter and told her multiple times that he was going to kill her.
Investigators used nearby surveillance camera footage to identify a car that was in the area before and after the assault. License plate readers caught the vehicle shortly after and the registered owner matched the description the woman gave of the suspect.
Police found the vehicle in a driveway just after 1 p.m. Tuesday and followed a man who got into the car and drove away. Police found Curiel after stopping the vehicle.
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Bloomington Police said after an interview, Curiel was taken to the Monroe County Jail, where as he was being booked, he ran out an overhead door in the sallyport of the jail while still handcuffed.
Officers caught up to him and tackled him near city hall.
Curiel has an initial hearing scheduled for Thursday. If convicted, he faces up to 40 years for a Level 1 felony and up to two and a half years for a Level 6 felony, according to Indiana sentencing guidelines.
