Warning: this article mentions and includes details of sexual assault that may be disturbing to some readers.
BLOOMINGTON — A Bloomington man already in jail for a violent sexual assault earlier this month is now facing an additional charge of child solicitation for alleged inappropriate messages he sent to a 10-year-old victim just hours before the other assault.
Rodrigo Perez Curiel, 21, was charged Wednesday with one count of child solicitation, a Level 5 felony. Curiel is charged in a separate case with three counts of rape while armed with a deadly weapon or threatening the use of deadly force, a Level 1 felony; escape, a Level 5 felony; and strangulation, a Level 6 felony.
Curiel has an initial hearing for the new charge on Thursday.
The new case stems from an investigation after the October rape, when police were searching Curiel’s cellphone for evidence related to the assault. When detectives conducted the search, they reportedly found a series of sexual messages sent by Curiel to a ten year old on the Facebook Messenger app.
According to court documents, the messages were exchanged less than two hours before Curiel is accused of holding a separate victim at knifepoint and raping her a ditch near the roundabout on W 17th Street. 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.
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.
If convicted, Curiel faces up to 40 years for each Level 1 felony; a maxmium of six years for a Level 5 felony; and up to a two and a half year sentence for a Level 6 felony, according to Indiana sentencing guidelines.
For more information on sexual violence prevention and resources, see http://stopsexualviolence.iu.edu
Additional safety tips can be found at: https://protect.iu.edu/police-safety/safety-prevention/index.html
