A Miami biochemist was arrested and charged with multiple counts of drugging and sexually battering three women at his luxury condo in the city.
Jeremy Bittner, 41, was arrested on Monday on counts of sexual battery, false imprisonment and possession of a controlled substance, according to NBC Miami.
Police reports state that two women reported they were sexually assaulted by him, while another woman said she managed to get away from him even though she was drugged.
“The way I would categorize him is, is an individual who victimized at least three women. He has caused pain and suffering that will last for the remainder of their life I’m sure. Thankfully these women were brave enough to come forward,” Miami Beach Police spokesperson Ernesto Rodriguez told NBC Miami.
“Ultimately our goal is to ensure that this man stays behind bars.”
An arrest report states that on 29 October the suspect allegedly picked up a 25-year-old woman from Miami’s international airport.
She said that after arriving at the condo she saw what she believed were methamphetamine, ketamine and cocaine and told police that the suspect took cocaine, then became violent towards her and grabbed her hair.
He then allegedly grabbed a gun from his nightstand and told the alleged victim to “get with the program.” Police say that the suspect then raped her on the couch, before raping her a second time.
A second alleged victim told police that she had been friends with the suspect since 2020, before he told her that he had separated rom his wife.
She told police that she went to his condo on 30 January where he was “smoking crack and ingesting cocaine.’”
He offered her ecstasy but she refused and accepted a glass of wine.
“Shortly after consuming the glass of wine, she began to feel very drowsy and began to forget things, which made (the victim) feel as if (Bittner) drugged her by placing something in her drink,” the investigating officer wrote.
“(He) began removing her articles of clothing, leaving her nude, but due to her altered state, believed to be the result of being drugged, she was unable to defend herself.”
She told police that the suspect snorted cocaine off her chest before allegedly sexually assaulting her.
A third woman who lives in the same building told police that in February she met him in the elevator and went to his condo for a drink the following day.
She claims that he made her a vodka and ginger ale and forced her to drink a shot of vodka, after which she woke up on the couch as he allegedly grabbed her neck and tried to sexually assault her.
She told police that she later found videos on her phone of her asking the suspect why he had drugged her and he responded that she “wanted to be drugged.”
Police say that the suspect told them the first two incidents were “consensual” and that he was just being “nice” to the third alleged victim.
He is being held without bond in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.