Florida dishwasher arrested for rubbing sleeping woman’s leg, leading her to chase him with car: PPD

Man breaks into home, touches sleeping woman

FOX 13's Kylie Jones reports on a man in Palmetto breaking into a home and touching a woman while she slept.

PALMETTO Fla. - The Palmetto Police Department says a woman sleeping next to her boyfriend was awoken just before 5 a.m. on March 2 by a man rubbing her leg.

Mugshot of Roger Ivan Lopez Gomez. Courtesy: Palmetto Police Department.

According to the Palmetto Police Department's probable cause affidavit, Roger Ivan Lopez Gomez, 26, broke in through the front door before making his way to the second floor.

That’s where authorities say he entered the couple’s bedroom, who were among two other people in the house, and began rubbing her leg under a blanket.

The backstory:

The affidavit says she began screaming, which woke up her sleeping boyfriend next to her and caused Lopez Gomez to run downstairs and leave the house.

"He found the front door of the home open," Palmetto Police Chief Scott Tyler said. "He actually went into the house, started looking through the rooms, saw one of the women in the house in bed, and actually went into the bedroom and began touching her."

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That's when the woman chased Lopez Gomez down the street before losing him near 10th St. W.

"I can’t imagine waking up to somebody by my bed touching me," Tyler said.

Detectives say they were called, and the homeowner provided detectives with surveillance footage of Lopez Gomez entering and exiting the home.

Photos of Roger Lopez Gomez were captured by security cameras at the home.

Dig deeper:

According to the affidavit, the victim posted the footage to a Facebook group called the Parrish Parents Network, leading the manager at Ferraro’s Italian Grille in Parrish to recognize Lopez Gomez as a restaurant dishwasher.

"The way that my employees here handled the whole situation was impeccable," said the owner of Ferraro’s Italian Grille. "I was more shocked because when you know people for so long, that’s the last thing I would’ve expected from anybody."

The owner says he's grateful that his team stepped in to help prevent this from happening to anyone else.

Ferraro's Italian Grille.

"If that didn’t take place here, we may not have him in custody right now and, Lord knows, what he may have escalated to," Tyler said.

According to the affidavit, detectives determined that Lopez Gomez resembled the person in the footage and confronted him at Ferraro’s Italian Grille. When they spoke to Lopez Gomez, he had the same ‘chin-strip’ beard and Croc-like shoes as the person on camera.

A photo of Roger Lopez Gomez was captured by security cameras at the home.

Initially, Lopez Gomez denied the incident, telling detectives he was home when it happened. The affidavit states that detectives told him they would run the footage through a facial recognition system, which is when he admitted to it.

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According to the affidavit, authorities brought him in for questioning, where he claimed to be under the influence of alcohol during the time and that he only ended up at the victim's house because he lived nearby.

"He denied knowing them," Tyler said. "He really couldn’t provide an answer about why he chose that house, or why he was at the front door. We don’t know."
The owner of Ferraro's Italian Grille said, "Nobody wants it to be their employee or wants it to be their family member or their friend."

What's next:

He remains in the Manatee County Jail.

The Manatee County Sheriff's Office says that ICE has placed a detainer hold on Lopez Gomez. However, his current legal status is unclear.

The Source: The information in this story was collected by FOX 13's Kylie Jones and FOX 13's News Staff.

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