Arrest Made in Second Degree Sexual Abuse Offense on 30th St.
By • September 9, 2019 0 1017
On Sept. 7, the Metropolitan Police Department announced: “Detectives from the MPD’s Sexual Assault Unit have announced an arrest has been made in connection with a Burglary One and Second Degree Sexual Abuse offense that occurred on Friday, August 30, 2019, in the 1300 block 30th Street, Northwest.
“At approximately 1:30 a.m., the suspect gained entry to a private residence. Once inside, the suspect sexually assaulted a female victim. The suspect then fled the scene.
“On Saturday, September 7, 2019, pursuant to a D.C. Superior Court arrest warrant, members of the Sexual Assault Unit and members of the Sixth District arrested 34-year-old Bertrand Joseph Lebeau. He was charged with Burglary One and Second Degree Sexual Abuse.”
The following is a revised portion of an earlier Georgetowner story on the Aug. 30 incident.
A young woman woke up in the bedroom of her basement apartment on the east side of Georgetown early Friday morning, Aug. 30, suddenly terrified. It was 1:30 a.m. and there was an unknown man standing at the foot of her bed.
“Don’t be afraid,” he told the woman, who is in her early 20s. “I’m a nice man. Can you just sit on the bed and talk to me?”
According to her landlady, the woman sank onto her bed shaking. And then the man raped her.
Metropolitan Police arrived. By 3 a.m., the victim — along with all the bedding — had been taken to the Washington Hospital Center.
“I can’t believe I slept through the whole thing!” said the homeowner, who asked not to be identified. But the “very upset young woman and her equally upset apartment-mate — a young man, a family friend who was asleep in another room and also didn’t hear anything until it was over and he called the police” — told her about it the next morning.
According to the homeowner, the victim’s mother flew in from Massachusetts to take her home for the long weekend. “Several plainclothes officers who were walking around the neighborhood talking to people Friday morning could tell me nothing. A police detective assigned to the case was reticent to the point of seeming disinterested in hearing or sharing any details at all,” she said he insisted.
“It makes me feel terribly uncomfortable,” the homeowner said. “Although the two young people downstairs made a terrible mistake — they left their front door unlocked — still the official response has been less than satisfactory.”
