Bethesda Man Charged In Boston Transit System Sexual Assault

A Bethesda man has been arrested after DNA evidence allegedly linked him to a 2004 sexual assault on Boston's transit system, according to MBTA Transit Police documents and a Boston Globe report.

The man is also alleged to be connected to a similar crime in 2002 while riding Metro in Arlington, according to the report and police documents released Monday by the District Attorney's Office in Suffolk County, Mass., though he is not charged in the incident.

Timothy L. Day, 52, of Kirby Road in Bethesda, was arrested May 15 in connection with the 2004 sexual assault on Boston's MBTA transit system, according to the report and the documents. Day was due in court in Boston on Monday on a charge of indecent assault and battery, according to a spokesman for the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office.

During the June 22, 2004, incident in Boston, Day allegedly inappropriately touched himself near a 23-year-old woman while both were riding an MBTA subway train through Kenmore Station, according to the report. The station, on the MBTA's Green Line, is near Boston's Fenway Park. The incident occurred on the same day as a Red Sox game, while the train was crowded with passengers, according to the Globe and the documents.

After the woman left the train, she discovered biological material on her purse and pants. The woman reported the incident to police, but the suspect wasn't immediately identified, according to the police documents. The biological material was taken to the Boston Police Crime Lab and then submitted to the Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, which maintains millions of offender DNA samples, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office.

A "case-to-case hit" on the DNA material matched the genetic profile of a man who committed a similar crime while riding Metro in Arlington, Va., in 2002, a case being investigated by the WMATA Transit Police, according to the report and police documents.

It wasn't until 2011, however, when a “case-to-offender hit" linked the 2004 incident to Day, whose DNA profile had been entered into the database following a federal conviction, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office. WMATA Transit Police found Day and took a DNA buccal swab that connected him to both the 2002 and 2004 crimes, the documents stated.

Day was arrested May 15 and posted $60,000 cash bail after an extradition hearing in Maryland. He was ordered to surrender himself to Massachusetts authorities by noon Monday, according to the documents.

Arlington County Commonwealth Attorney Theophani Stamos told the Globe that her office could not prosecute Day for the 2002 incident on Metro because the alleged crime was considered to be a misdemeanor. Under Virginia law, misdemeanors have a one-year statue of limitations, Stamos told the Globe.

Stamos confirmed to Patch that Arlington County is not moving forward with prosecution.

Day is expected to post a $1,500 bail, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office, and is due back in court in Boston on June 27.

Peter Elikann, an attorney for Day, was not immediately available for comment.