BURLINGTON — A Superior Court judge has, for the second time, thrown out a sexual assault charge against a former Uber driver accused of assaulting a drunk female passenger in 2015.
Omar Nassir, 24, still faces a lesser charge of lewd and lascivious conduct. He is accused of exposing himself to the passenger and requesting oral sex.
Superior Court Judge James Crucitti issued the latest decision last week, saying the state still lacked evidence.
Crucitti had dismissed the felony sexual assault charge last fall because he said the state had not presented enough evidence for a jury to find Nassir guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Police said that in a lengthy interview with officers, during which Nassir denied several times that any contact occurred between him and the passenger, he later admitted having sex with the woman but said she initiated the contact.
In his decision dismissing the sexual assault charge in October, Crucitti wrote that prosecutors could not rely on the portion of Nassir’s statements to police in which he said he had sex with the passenger and ignore other portions in which Nassir said the woman initiated the contact.
Prosecutors refiled the charge with new evidence from a follow-up interview with the passenger, in which she told police she was too intoxicated to have given consent.
Crucitti allowed the state to refile the sexual assault charge, noting that prosecutors had met the “probable cause” threshold for refiling, which requires the court to look at the evidence in the “light most favorable to the state.”
Nassir’s attorney filed again last month to have the charge dismissed, and the judge found that the state still had not presented enough evidence.