Philly Uber Driver Convicted of Sexually Assaulting Female Passenger

Mugshot of Abdellah Elkaddi (Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office)

Less than a year since his arrest, 47-year-old Northeast Philadelphia man Abdellah Elkaddi has been convicted of sexually assaulting a young woman who was a passenger in his UberX vehicle in June 2015.

A jury has found Elkaddi guilty of sexual assault and aggravated indecent assault without consent, both felonies, and a misdemeanor indecent assault charge as well. He was found not guilty of the most serious charge, first-degree rape. The jury also found him not guilty of aggravated indecent assault while the victim was unconscious or otherwise unaware of what is happening.

The sexual assault occurred after Elkaddi picked the young woman up in Philadelphia just after 11 p.m. on Wednesday, June 10th. She had been with friends at Independence Beer Garden that night and needed to get to her car, which she had left at a train station in Norristown.

The woman told police that when she arrived at the train station, her car was gone, and Elkaddi drove her to the Norristown Police Department to see if they had towed it. She didn’t get any answers, so she left and asked Elkaddi to take her home. She told investigators that she fell asleep in the car and awoke to find Elkaddi groping her before he allegedly forcibly penetrated her. After the assault, she went immediately to police and gave a statement.

Elkaddi didn’t deny having sex with the woman. He claimed that the sex was consensual. According to a report on Philly.com, Elkaddi’s lawyer argued that the victim concocted the allegations of rape because she was trying to deflect attention from an incident earlier in the evening when she was ejected from Independence Beer Garden. The woman testified that she was asked to leave the bar after accidentally using the men’s bathroom.

Elkaddi remains in Montgomery County Prison pending sentencing. The sexual assault charge alone is punishable by up to ten years in prison. A rape conviction would have carried a maximum sentence of 20 years.

Follow @VictorFiorillo on Twitter.