A Level 3 predator accused of sexually assaulting a college student in the Back Bay was busted along the city’s drug-plagued Methadone Mile.
Nahom Getaneh, 33, was tracked down by police in the area of Atkinson Street and Southampton Street — the epicenter of the opioid-crazed zone — after a fuzzy photo was posted of a suspected stalker.
Getaneh faces arraignment in Boston Municipal Court on charges of assault with intent to rape and indecent assault and battery. He is accused of attacking an MIT student Saturday night in the area of Beacon Street at about 11:45 p.m.
The alleged victim was entering her Delta Phi Epsilon sorority at 515 Beacon St. No further details were immediately available about the incident, but the charges suggest the attack could have been much worse.
Getaneh also had two outstanding warrants against him for failure to register as a sex offender and possession of class B drugs.
He is listed as being 6 feet tall and weighing 240 pounds, according to his Sex Offender Registry profile. That summary lists him as being convicted in 2007 with indecent assault and battery on a person aged 14 or older.
He was also described by police as wearing a navy-blue shirt with tie-dye design and black baggy sweatpants with two white stripes at the time of the alleged attack. He also reportedly spoke English with an accent and also spoke in another language, police added.
City Councilor Frank Baker said the suspect is just one of the “bad behaviors” the city keeps rewarding by putting up with the mess along the Mile — also known as Mass and Cass.
“We’re rewarding poor behavior across the board,” Baker, who is not seeking re-election, told the Herald Tuesday night. “He’s not the only one down there. It’s a total failure. Tax dollars are going to someone like that to live there.”
Baker, a District 3 conservative voice on a left-leaning City Council, said dumping $10 million into “low-threshold housing” for those who congregate along the Methadone Mile is not helping the city.
“Look at LA, San Francisco, New York City and Seattle,” he said, “the woke way is not working.”
If convicted, Baker said this suspect should be “put in jail and the key thrown away.”
What’s needed, he added, is allowing the city to place denizens of the Mile in a “civil hold” so they can get the help they need and not prey on the innocent while returning the neighborhood back to those who want a return to normalcy.
According to multiple reports, MIT police said the suspect approached on a bicycle asking for food as the woman went inside the sorority when the man groped her from behind, followed her in and she fought him off.