A Voorhees man allegedly targeted a “helpless” woman during a sexual assault on the PATCO Hi-Speedline, authorities say.
Charles Arcano, 45, is accused of assaulting a 22-year-old woman in an otherwise-empty train car in the pre-dawn hours of Jan. 27, according to the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office.
Arcano “knew or should have known the victim to be physically helpless or incapacitated,” a criminal complaint alleges.
Arcano repeatedly groped, licked and fondled the woman during the incident around 4 a.m. on a Sunday morning, according to the complaint.
The assault occurred while the woman was passed out and at times when she resisted, according to a probable cause statement for Arcano’s arrest.
At one point, the statement alleges Arcano followed the woman when she walked away from him, then pulled her onto a seat and held the struggling victim on his lap.
The woman and a friend were returning from Philadelphia to Collingswood prior to the assault, according to the statment.
“When they arrived in Collingswood, she was unable to exit the train,” says the probable cause statement, which notes the woman described herself as intoxicated.
“She then sat down and a male she did not know sat beside her,” the statement says.
“The victim said she passed out and woke up to an unknown male” assaulting her, the statement continued.
The woman told investigators she pushed at the man and told him to stop, but he pulled down her shirt and continued the assault.
The incident, graphically described in the probable cause statement, was captured on video, the prosecutor’s office said.
Investigators previously had released surveillance video from PATCO’s Haddon Township station in an effort to identify a suspect.
The surveillance video included images of a pickup truck that had brought the suspect to the Westmont station several hours before the assault.
“Investigation identified the male driver who dropped defendant off,” according to the probable cause statement. “This male identified the suspect from the video as Charles Arcano.”
Arcano was arrested Tuesday in South Philadelphia, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
He is charged with aggravated assault, sexual assault, aggravated sexual contact and criminal restraint.
Arcano is being held in Philadelphia, pending extradition to New Jersey, the prosecutor’s office said.
It noted an investigation into the assault is ongoing.
Anyone with information is asked to call Prosecutor’s Detective Tanner Ogilvie at 856-650-6398 or Corporal Joseph Ebling of the Delaware River Port Authority Police at 856-969-7884.
Jim Walsh: @jimwalsh_cp; 856-486-2646; jwalsh@gannettnj.com