A Lyft driver was arrested Thursday, accused of kidnapping a woman in the UCF area, driving her to his house and then raping her.

  • Police arrested Peter Solomon Thursday
  • Accused of raping Lyft passenger in his car back in July
  • Investigators had to wait a month to get access to victim's account

The incident happened the night of July 1. A woman tried to leave the Knight's Pub after a night out with friends. She used the Lyft taxi mobile application, and a driver called "Peter" picked her up.  

"She knew where she wanted to go, but the driver took a different path, he wasn't driving her back to her house. He went to his house," Orlando Police Special Victims Unit Detective Tami Edwards explained.  

Investigators have identified that driver as 49-year-old Peter Solomon. The night of the attack he allegedly drove her to his house. There two other men saw as the woman was taken inside and put in a room.  

According to investigators Solomon briefly left her alone. That's when the woman tried to call her mom, and 911 to no avail.

Investigators said she attempted to run outside, but Solomon caught her and threatened to hurt her if she tried to leave again.  

That's when investigators say Solomon forced himself on her and raped her. Hours later he drove her to an area of Colonial Drive where he dropped her off.

For over a month investigators waited for Lyft to grant them access to the victim's account to help identify Solomon.

Lyft says Solomon was put on suspension after law enforcement subpoenaed them for his information.

Here is Lyft's full statement from spokesperson Alexandra LaManna:

"We have a strict zero-tolerance policy for any type of violent behavior, abuse or harassment and as soon as we learned about this incident, we permanently banned the driver from accessing the Lyft platform.  We are working with law enforcement to support their investigation."

Upon arrest, Solomon made admissions to investigators, but OPD could not elaborate on the details. However, they did say they are unaware of any similar attacks, but encourage anyone with information to contact them immediately.

Now OPD says they just hope this doesn't happen again, and suggest anyone using a taxi application to travel in pairs.

"If you can have a plan ahead of time. Well what if this happens? And you already have that plan thought out first, if a situation were to arise then you would likely fall back on that," Edwards said.