Uber driver puts on mask, rapes passenger, Florida cops say. He’s sentenced to life

An Uber driver dropped a woman off at her apartment, then he put on a mask, ran after her and raped her on the ground, Florida prosecutors said.

Felix Torres, 39, has now been sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of sexual battery with great force while masked, the State Attorney’s Office for the 20th Judicial Circuit of Florida announced Jan. 13.

McClatchy News reached out to Torres’ public defender for comment Jan. 13 but did not immediately receive a response.

At about 3 a.m. Dec. 4, 2022, Torres dropped off an Uber passenger at her apartment complex in Fort Myers after a night out, according to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office.

The woman told deputies she started walking to her building when someone grabbed her from behind and threw her to the ground, an arrest affidavit says. She said she fought back and screamed, but the man covered her mouth, according to deputies.

Then the person raped her and stole her phone, which was later found nearby, deputies said. The passenger later said she was intoxicated and couldn’t describe the Uber driver or vehicle that took her home, deputies said.

Torres didn’t deny driving the woman home, but he denied in interviews with investigators that he was the person who raped her, according to deputies. Video surveillance footage from the complex shows Torres’ Honda Pilot pull into the complex, then the woman is seen getting out of a vehicle not shown on camera and walking toward her door, deputies said.

A man then appears from the same direction from which she came, and he puts on a mask and runs after her, deputies said. About 10 minutes later, he appears running back in the same direction, then Torres’ SUV is seen leaving, according to deputies.

Torres initially said he had gotten out of the car to give her an item he had found in his backseat, deputies said. He also said it was a coincidence that someone ran after her from the direction of his SUV, and it was also a coincidence that he left at the same time the person was seen running away again, according to a transcript of an interview filed in Lee County.

The investigators insisted there were no coincidences, while Torres insisted the person in the video wasn’t him.

He later changed his story and told a detective he had a consensual encounter with the woman while giving her the item, but she later told him to stop, so he ran away, according to the transcript, which Torres’ attorney tried to suppress in court.

Torres described the incident as a “misunderstanding,” investigators wrote in the transcript.

In a statement shared with The News-Press at the time of Torres’ arrest, a spokesperson for Uber said the rideshare company was “sickened by what the rider reported to police.”

“The driver has been banned from the Uber platform, and we are committed to assisting law enforcement however we can,” the spokesperson said.

A jury found him guilty after a three-day trial, prosecutors said Dec. 20.

This story was originally published January 13, 2025 at 3:23 PM with the headline "Uber driver puts on mask, rapes passenger, Florida cops say. He’s sentenced to life."