Westchester County District Attorney Miriam E. Rocah announced that Bronx resident Ahmed Alzakaria, a Lyft driver who drove a female passenger from Manhattan to a secluded area in Westchester County and forced himself on her, pled guilty.
Alzakaria, 51, pled guilty on October 26, 2021, to Attempted Sexual Abuse in the First Degree, a felony. He faces a maximum sentence of four years in a state prison.
On January 6, 2019, at approximately 11 p.m., Alzakaria was working as a Lyft driver when he picked up a woman in Manhattan and offered to show her the sights of New York City during the ride. The woman, who was a foreign student, agreed and moved to the front seat. Alzakaria drove out of Manhattan to a secluded parking lot in the southern region of Westchester County, and despite the woman expressing discomfort, parked the car, placed his hand on the woman’s thigh and forced his tongue in her mouth.
The woman struggled to get the defendant to stop and asked him repeatedly to drive her home. Alzakaria instead tried to engage her in a sexual conversation and attempted to get the woman to lay down in the back seat. When the woman refused, Alzakaria drove the woman back to Manhattan, but continued to harass her during the drive. Once the ride was over, Alzakaria demanded the woman not report what happened.
The Westchester County Department of Public Safety arrested Alzakaria on December 3, 2019, following an investigation.
The case is before Judge Susan Cacace in Westchester County Court, and is being prosecuted by Senior Trial Counsel Craig Ascher. Alzakaria is scheduled to be sentenced on February 9, 2022.
Recent reports indicate that Lyft received more than 4,000 reports of sexual assaults during rides from 2017 to 2019, including 1,800 reports in 2019 alone.
