After allegedly picking up two young women from a Brickell pub while posing as a rideshare driver and raping them in two different incidences, Miami police detained the man on Friday. He has been charged with the exact same crime before.
In October of last year, Yadir Alejandro Gongora, 40, of Hialeah, was detained again on suspicion of posing as an Uber driver, picking up two ladies from a Wynwood nightclub, and assaulting one of them sexually on South Beach.
Miami-Dade court records in that instance indicate that Gongora entered a guilty plea to robbery by abrupt snatching, was placed on two years of probation, and had his adjudication deferred in April. Prosecutors did not pursue charges of strong-armed robbery and sexual battery.
According to a sentencing letter, the court determined that he “was not likely to engage in a criminal course of conduct.”
According to the police, Gongora was involved in two events prior to his original arrest in October, which led to his most recent arrest. He is currently being prosecuted on two counts of kidnapping and sexual battery.
According to authorities, the two ladies involved in the most recent occurrences had departed the Candela bar, which is housed in the Mary Brickell Village shopping center at 900 S. Miami Ave., and both claimed they had no memory of ever placing a ridesharing request.
In the first incident, authorities said a 22-year-old lady left the pub at around two in the morning on August 20, 2023, and when she woke up, she discovered Gongora raping her in the rear of a car driven by another person.
According to an arrest report, she was not intending to wake up in the Publix parking lot at 134 SW 13th St. when she subsequently awoke again in the car with Gongora beside her.
It says she would go through a rape examination and eventually report what happened to the police. According to investigators, the second rape occurred on September 29, 2023.
After leaving the pub once more at roughly two in the morning, the 21-year-old claimed officers she didn’t remember anything until she woke up at seven outside the Navarro Discount Pharmacy, located at 18601 NW 67th Ave., not far from her house.
“The victim noticed she had her underwear in her purse and her phone, wallet and camera were missing,” according to the arrest report.
This prompted her to go through a rape examination and report the incident to the police. According to the arrest records, Gongora’s DNA was found in a Florida Department of Law Enforcement database.
Gongora’s photo was sent to both women on Thursday, according to the police, who then recognized him as the suspect. The following day, police arrested him at his East Fourth Avenue apartment in Hialeah.
Gongora claimed in an interview with detectives that “he would offer people rides” as they left clubs in the Wynwood and downtown Miami areas, mentioning well-known establishments like Club Space and E11EVEN. He claimed to operate independently and not for a rideshare company, and that riders would pay him with cash or through apps.
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According to the police, Gongora acknowledged occasionally picking up inebriated individuals leaving the clubs and claimed to have “regular recurring customers that would contact him directly.”
According to the arrest papers, he admitted to officers that “he preferred men because the women did not have money to pay for the rides.”
The next thing Gongora told the police was taken out of the arrest records. Online records indicate that the Cuban national was being held at the Metrowest Detention Center on Monday without bond following his detention.
