Woman in wheelchair couldn’t escape as man attacked for 40 minutes, Oregon officials say
A man accused of kicking a homeless woman in the face while wearing steel-toed boots and then physically and sexually assaulting her for about 40 minutes until he was interrupted by street sweeper was convicted in Oregon, prosecutors said.
The woman testified that she “could not move fast enough to get away from” Timothy Paul Fitzgerald during the 2023 attack in Beaverton because she was using a wheelchair, the Washington County District Attorney’s Office said Jan. 13 in a news release.
Fitzgerald fled after a street sweeper pulled in near the assault, but police found him about 10 minutes later, prosecutors said.
The 54-year-old consented to being swabbed for DNA, and “those samples showed the victim’s DNA present on (his) body,” according to prosecutors.
The attack also largely was caught on security video, prosecutors said.
McClatchy News reached out to Fitzgerald’s attorney Jan. 14 and was awaiting a response.
The woman was asleep on a downtown sidewalk when Fitzgerald first went up to her, according to prosecutors. He offered her money and then hit and kicked her after she declined, causing “a complex fracture of her nasal and orbital bones,” prosecutors said.
Fitzgerald then assaulted the woman physically and sexually in a “more secluded” parking lot “for approximately 40 minutes” until the street sweeper’s arrival, according to prosecutors.
He reportedly told police he didn’t recall anything after offering the woman money.
A jury convicted Fitzgerald on Jan. 9 of first- and second-degree assault, two counts of first-degree sodomy, three counts of first-degree sexual abuse, first-degree kidnapping, first-degree attempted rape and first-degree unlawful sexual penetration, prosecutors said.
He’s scheduled to be sentenced in March.
Beaverton is part of the Portland metropolitan area.
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