Las Vegas police track down suspect in 2014 rape case in Texas

Las Vegas police have made an arrest in a six-year-old rape case using DNA testing and persistence, with detectives tracking down both the victim and suspect in different states.

The sex assault originally was reported to police in February 2014. A woman said she was partying with friends outside her apartment near South Commerce Street and West Philadelphia Avenue, then went inside her apartment and passed out.

“When she came to, she saw that one of her neighbors, by the name of Alfredo, was on top of her,” a police report states.

The case went cold for years with the victim initially indicating she was unwilling to pursue the matter, but Clark County Detention Center records now show a suspect is in jail in the case. Alfraido Zeyouma, 46, faces a single count of sex assault.

In the 2014 case, the woman went to University Medical Center for a sex assault examination after the attack. A DNA sample was collected during the examination, but the victim later walked out of the hospital and told police she did not want to pursue the matter.

More than four years later, in November 2018, detectives with the Metropolitan Police Department’s sexual assault detail detectives were notified that the evidence collected in 2014 at the hospital had been processed and the DNA collected was matched to Zeyouma, an arrest report states.

Police tracked down the victim in the Southeast United States and she agreed to work with authorities.

“It was not until she was recently contacted by detectives and informed of the DNA findings that she actually realized she was sexually assaulted,” a detective wrote in an arrest report. “(She) said she never consented to any sexual act with any person.”

The woman recounted how the man who assaulted her had previously asked for her phone number during an encounter at the apartment complex where she lived. She also saw the man on one occasion “standing on his apartment balcony, staring at her. (She) said the incident made her feel uncomfortable.”

Police confirmed that at the time of the assault in 2014, Zeyouma lived “directly across the street from the identified scene.”

The victim was shown a photo of Zeyouma and identified him as her assailant. A criminal history check for Zeyouma showed “a prior investigation and arrest for sexual penetration foreign object with force” in San Bernardino, California, the report said. That case was eventually dismissed due to insufficient evidence.

He also was registered in Nevada as a sex offender for attempted burglary and being under the influence of a controlled substance. In the case resulting in Zeyouma pleading guilty to attempted burglary, he was accused of going into a woman’s apartment and “licking her back” and demanding sex.

There have been a number of arrests recently in old sexual assault cases. In January North Las Vegas police charged Clifton Dawson, 63, with sexually assaulting a woman in 1997. Also in January, 19-year-old Dwayne Downing of Las Vegas was arrested in the 2016 sex assault of a minor. And, in December 2018, Las Vegas police arrested Kelvin Macklin, then 33, on charges stemming from a 2012 sex assault.

Police obtained a warrant and contacted Fort Worth, Texas, police to locate Zeyouma. The exact circumstances of his arrest were not detailed, but he was booked at the Clark County jail on Feb. 5. A preliminary hearing in the case is scheduled for Feb. 20.