Denver police have arrested a man who a woman said sexually assaulted her early Tuesday at Denver International Airport as DIA employees did nothing.
Alexander Bertrand, 26, an Oregon resident, is in custody on suspicion of felony sexual assault and assault, according to Detective John White, a spokesman for the Denver Police Department. Bertrand’s bail was set at $10,000.
The woman told 7News that she had missed her connecting flight to Illinois, where she was going for a job interview at a convent. She did not have money for a hotel and decided to spend the night at the airport.
The woman told Fox-31 News and 7News that she met a man at Chef Jimmy’s Italian Bistro & Spirits on Concourse A who told her he was a Marine. They started a conversation and continued to talk near an airport window after the bar closed at midnight.
The woman told the TV stations that the man tried to kiss her, and when she rejected his advances, he lifted her off the floor by her sweat shirt.
She said he then threw her to the floor and pounded her head on it. As he tore at her clothing and held her neck to the ground, she had an asthma attack and was unable to breathe or scream, she said. He then sexually assaulted her for 10 minutes in the concourse, the woman told the television stations.
The concourse was largely empty, but the woman alleges that airport employees walked by and saw what was happening but did not intervene. 7News reported the woman believed the workers were janitorial staff.
Finally, she told 7News, two airport workers outside the building who saw the attack through a window called security, and guards pulled him off her as he tried to tell them it was a lovers’ quarrel.
A representative with DIA said a contracted security guard called 911, and Bertrand was detained in the airport until police could respond to the scene.
The woman was treated for injuries at a local hospital and later went to a relative’s house in Denver.
A Noel Alexander Bertrand served in a Marine security detail at U.S. embassies in Venezuela and Ireland, according to Leatherneck, a Marine magazine.
