Your Honor,

On July 16, 2026, at 5:30 in the morning, I was just trying to get home.

My original bus had been delayed over fifteen hours. By then, I had been traveling for nearly twenty-four hours.

I was exhausted.

I was sitting beside a stranger on a Greyhound bus, and I was resting.

That is what I was doing when he repeatedly sexually assaulted me.

What continues to anger me most is how completely unnecessary all of this was.

I was not confronting him.
I was not threatening him.
I was not interfering with him.
I was not even asking anything from him.

I was resting.

All he had to do was leave me alone.

That was the entire obligation.

Leave the stranger beside you alone.
Respect her space.
Keep your hands to yourself.

Instead, he repeatedly chose to sexually assault me.

I was simply there, sleepy and resting beside him, and he decided that was enough of an opportunity.

He did not know my name, my life, my family, where I was going, or anything about me.

He did not know anything about the stranger sitting beside him except that she was there.

That is something I cannot stop thinking about.

What if the person sitting beside him had been twelve years old?

He would not have known that either..

He came to a country that was not his own and was able to travel freely through it. He could buy a ticket, board a bus, cross state lines, and sit among strangers.

And while exercising that freedom, he used his access to a stranger beside him to sexually assault her.

The point is not where he came from.
The point is what he chose to do once he was here.

The freedom to travel does not include the freedom to victimize the stranger sitting beside you.

This did not require cultural knowledge, legal knowledge, or some complicated understanding of American life.

It required one thing:
Do not sexually assault the stranger next to you.

There should have been a point when I got to be finished with July 16.

Instead, July 16 followed me home.

It followed me through police reports, body-camera footage, phone calls, emails, evidence, court documents, and months of having to deal with something I never chose.

I reported what happened immediately.
I spoke up.
The bus driver intervened.
Law enforcement was called.
I cooperated.

And still, I have been the one carrying the consequences.

He got moments. I got consequences.

Those consequences include something I cannot avoid: transportation.

I no longer have my car because, after working long hours, I fell asleep while driving and totaled it.

So I rely on rides and public transportation.

That means I will travel alone.
I will sit beside strangers.
I will get on buses where I cannot control who sits next to me.

I cannot choose every person who takes the seat beside me.

And I should not have to spend those trips wondering whether closing my eyes means somebody will decide my exhaustion is an opportunity.

Before July 16, resting beside another passenger was ordinary.

Now it is something I have to think about.

He made something ordinary feel dangerous.

I am not asking this Court to exaggerate what happened.

It does not need exaggeration.

I am asking the Court not to soften it.

This was not somebody “crossing a boundary.”
This was not an uncomfortable interaction.

I was sexually assaulted. Repeatedly. While I was resting.

Those words are harsh because what happened was harsh.

Another person's exhaustion is not an opportunity.
Another person's silence is not permission.
Another person's proximity is not consent.

A bus ticket does not give you access to the body in the next seat and being able to reach somebody does not give you the right to touch them.

I was resting.

All he had to do was leave me alone.

He did not.

I did nothing to create this situation.
He created it.

And I have been living with what he chose ever since.

Thank you for allowing me to be heard.

Female passenger

She/Her/Hers
"After every chance for communication, compliance, and  cooperation has been exhausted, only consequence remains."