Las Vegas man accused in sexual assault of woman for 2 days

A Las Vegas man was arrested Jan. 24 after he was accused of breaking into a woman’s house and holding her captive for two days while he sexually assaulted her.

A woman called police from her neighbor’s phone around 7:40 a.m. Jan. 24, claiming that a man had been assaulting her for two days and was now asleep on her couch, according to a recently released arrest report. When Metropolitan Police Department officers arrived, they found 37-year-old Hermes Cruz on the couch and took him into custody.

The woman told police she had met Cruz, whom she knew as “Ernest,” in November at a soup kitchen at St. Louis Avenue and Maryland Parkway, and she believes he’s been stalking her since they met, according to the report. She told police that he showed up at her apartment about a week before the arrest and they had “a good visit,” so she invited him inside.

She said that on Jan. 22, she came home from work around 3 p.m. and found Cruz inside her apartment. According to the report, she said he “became violent and forced her onto a couch” where he sexually assaulted her.

The woman told police that over the next two days and two nights, Cruz would not let her leave the apartment. She said he carried a kitchen knife around and, though he never threatened her with it, she was afraid he would use it against her if she tried to escape, the report said.

She said Cruz sexually assaulted her multiple times and wouldn’t let her sleep for two days.

According to the report, Cruz told the woman that he was going to violate her mother, her daughter and her granddaughter while forcing her to watch. She told police he strangled her with a sweater and a blanket and that she is unsure whether or not she lost consciousness.

Once Cruz fell asleep on the morning of Jan. 24, the woman said she ran to her neighbor’s apartment and asked to use the phone to call 911. Officers brought Cruz to the Metropolitan Police Department headquarters and, while he waited to be interviewed, the report said, he exposed himself and urinated on the floor of the interrogation room.

Officers said he would not answer questions about the allegations and instead yelled about the officers being “a ditch digger and not a bridge builder,” according to the report.

Cruz was arrested on suspicion of sex assault, kidnapping, battery to commit sex assault on a victim over age 16, battery by strangulation to commit sexual assault, involuntary servitude, unlawful acts involving human excrement by a prisoner in custody and four unrelated jaywalking charges. He is being held at the Clark County Detention Center without bail and is expected in court on Feb. 27.

Contact Alexis Egeland at aegeland@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0335. Follow @alexis_egeland on Twitter.