Metro police asked for the public's help on Wednesday in tracking down the MetroAccess driver wanted on charges of rape and sexual offense in a reported attack against a disabled passenger on her way home from an adult day care center.
Tanveer Fayyaz, 31, who has lived in the Gaithersburg area, is accused of assaulting one of his riders last Thursday in Montgomery County as he drove her to her home on the paratransit service, Metro Transit Police said Wednesday. Police said they have a warrant against him for one count of second-degree rape and two counts of second-degree sexual offense.
Metro Transit Police are looking for Tanveer Fayyaz, 31, on one count of second-degree rape and two counts of second-degree sexual offense. They say he has lived in the Gaithersburg area. They said he is about 5-foot-10 and 180 pounds with black hair and brown eyes. He may now have a full beard and mustache. Police ask anyone with information about his whereabouts to call Metro Transit Police at 202-962-2121 or call 911.
Metro officials said on Tuesday they had a warrant against a driver but declined to release his name. The Washington Examiner first reported his name was Tanveer Fayyaz.
Fayyaz worked for Regency Cab, which provided MetroAccess service for Metro contractor MV Transportation. He was suspended from driving after police received the report on Monday.
He is the third MetroAccess driver implicated in a sexual assault case of a rider this year.
Like all MetroAccess drivers, he underwent a criminal background check before starting work for the paratransit service, which shuttles riders physically unable to take Metrorail or Metrobus, MV spokesman David Smith told The Examiner.
But MV Transportation did not conduct the background check, Smith said, as Fayyaz had a valid taxi permit when he was hired in January to start driving for MetroAccess. Smith said drivers receiving taxi permits undergo background checks "as thorough if not more thorough" than those done by MV.
Fayyaz also would have undergone retraining MV did earlier this spring after another driver was arrested on charges of sexually assaulting a rider, he said.