Man charged in UC Berkeley sex crime case
Police said Andrew McNear pulled a woman off her bike and threatened her while she was riding near University Village in Albany.
A man police say attacked a woman riding her bike on UC Berkeley property in January has been charged with a felony sex crime and attempted kidnapping, court papers show.
The woman, who was acquainted with the man, managed to escape by pepper-spraying him, UC Berkeley police said last month.
According to court papers, the woman was riding her bike Jan. 21 near University Village in Albany when a man later identified as Andrew McNear shouted that he planned to follow her and rape her, and then pulled her off her bike toward the bushes.
Andrew McNear. ACSO
After pepper-spraying McNear, the woman reported the crime to police, advising them that she knew the suspect as "Andy," a "transient male who frequents the area."
When they heard the description, officers from the Berkeley Police Department told the University of California Police Department that it sounded like McNear, according to court papers.
The woman later picked McNear, 33, out of a line-up, police wrote.
UCPD got a warrant for McNear's arrest, and BPD found him and detained him in northwest Berkeley in the days that followed.
After his arrest, McNear told UCPD he was "near the area" when the crime took place, and was "familiar with" the woman who reported it, "but otherwise denied any involvement," police wrote in charging papers.
On Jan. 27, the Alameda County DA's office charged McNear with assault with the intent to commit a sex crime along with attempted kidnapping, according to court papers.
He entered a not-guilty plea Jan. 28.
McNear has one prior conviction, for assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury, in Contra Costa County in 2023, charging papers show.
Read more about crime near UC Berkeley.
According to Alameda County court records, McNear had been charged in December with arson, domestic violence and false imprisonment, all felonies, as well as recklessly setting an inhabited structure on fire, which was listed as a misdeameanor.
In that case, BPD wrote that McNear "forcibly closed a window" on his girlfriend to stop her from leaving her RV, then punched her in the face at least twice and threw her on the ground near Fifth and Harrison streets.
McNear then "started a fire" inside the woman's RV, causing extensive damage, BPD wrote in charging papers from that case.
A Jan. 17 plea deal put him on a three-year probation term.
As of this week, McNear was no longer in custody and the status of the UCPD case was not immediately available online.
