By Kevin Deutsch
A man arrested for exposing himself to an older adult in Tamarac has been linked to a sexual assault he committed against a woman he met on a county bus in Lauderhill, court records show.
Ameer Ali, 33, of Lauderhill, was busted by Broward Sheriff’s Office Tamarac District detectives on Feb. 25 for allegedly exposing his genitals to an older adult in public and snatching her cell phone, according to an arrest affidavit.
Investigative work by detectives linked Ali to a Dec. 30, 2021, sexual assault being investigated by the Lauderhill Police Department, records show. In that case, the victim told her father she was sexually assaulted by an unknown attacker in the 7200 block of Oakland Park Boulevard after riding the same Broward County Transit bus as him, records show.
Once they exited the bus, the man asked the victim for a cigarette. She gave him one, and the two engaged in friendly conversation while she waited for her father to pick her up, the victim told police.
According to the affidavit, the attacker then grabbed the woman by both her arms and pulled her near the side of a building, telling her, “this will only take a minute.”
Against her consent, the man forced the woman to the ground, pulled down her pants, removed her underwear, and unsuccessfully tried to penetrate her, according to court records.
He then struck her twice on the side of her face, the affidavit states.
After the sexual battery, the attacker took the victim’s cell phone, driver’s license, and bank cards before running off, records show.
Detectives used surveillance footage from a nearby pizzeria to pull an image of a suspect, whose photo was then entered into a “photo identification database,” Lauderhill investigators said in the affidavit.
“The second highest photo that best matched the description was that of Ameer Ali,” detectives wrote.
The sexual assault investigation remained ongoing until Lauderhill detectives were contacted on Feb. 25 by BSO Tamarac detectives, records show.
The Tamarac investigators told their Lauderhill counterparts they had arrested Ali for exposing his genitals to an older adult and stealing her phone, records show.
In Ali’s possession, they had found a key piece of evidence: the driver’s license of the woman he allegedly sexually assaulted months earlier in Lauderhill, the affidavit states.
In an interview with detectives from both law enforcement agencies, Ali admitted to the alleged crimes in their jurisdictions, records show. He said he had taken the sexual assault victim’s phone because “he was angry with her for not having sex with him,” the affidavit states.
Ali is charged with robbery, battery, tampering, wearing a mask while committing a crime, battery on a person 65 years of age or older, and exposing his sex organs in public.
According to court records, he was being held on a bond of more than $80,000 Sunday at the Joseph V. Conte Facility.
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