Police: Man sexually assaulted after answering Craigslist ad
Investigators say the man was drugged after he showed up for a meeting with the poster.
from AMERICAN-STATESMAN
The 23-year-old man showed up at the Southwest Austin apartment at 4 a.m. Tuesday after answering a Craigslist post advertising a good time.
When he walked in, the man who answered the door promised that his female roommate, who he said had left, would soon return, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. That’s when Ernest Ray Lamey, 35, offered the 23-year-old a drink laced with Ambien, a sleeping pill, and waited until it kicked in before sexually attacking him, the affidavit said.
Lamey was charged Wednesday with sexual assault, a second-degree felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison. He was being held in the Travis County Jail on Thursday in lieu of $20,000 bail.
State officials have increased their efforts in the past few years to combat cyber crimes, mostly against children. This year, a Buda man was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl he met on the popular social networking Web site MySpace.com.
But officials say they’ve never seen a case where an adult was attacked after answering an online ad.
"According to the detective, this is the first time he’s dealt with an incident like this," Austin police spokeswoman Toni Chovanetz said.
Chovanetz would not discuss the incident further. She asks that people who think they might have found themselves in a similar situation call the Police Department’s sex crimes tip line at 974-5095.
The online advertisement the man responded to was for "partying and hanging out with other men and women," according to affidavit. The man e-mailed the address provided in the ad and arranged a meeting, the affidavit said.
Lamey showed the man a picture of a woman he said was his roommate before offering the drink, the affidavit said.
He "took a few drinks and started feeling very sleepy," the document said.
Investigators later searched the apartment in the 4000 block of Victory Drive and found pills, a pill crusher and powder remains, the affidavit said.
The affidavit said Lamey confessed to drugging the man.
A representative for Craigslist, an online destination for community classifieds and forums that includes a personals section, could not be reached for comment.