Suspect Arrested in Attack on Former Senator

UPDATE Nov 10, 2023 1:45 PM CST

An arrest has been made in the sexual assault reported in Iowa this week by former US Sen. Martha McSally. Police in Omaha, Nebraska, said they took the 25-year-old into custody after officers saw him about 3:20am Friday. The man, who lives in the Nebraska town of Papillion, will be extradited to nearby Council Bluffs, the AP reports. He was being held without bond and is charged with one count of assault with intent to commit sexual abuse, per CNN. Surveillance images showed the suspect approaching McSally. The arrest warrant says employees at a restaurant in the area recognized him, and the credit card the suspect used there revealed his identity.

Nov 9, 2023 9:20 AM CST

A former senator from Arizona made a distressing revelation this week of a crime against her while she ran along the shore of the Missouri River, not far from Omaha, Nebraska. "I was just sexually assaulted while out running," Martha McSally wrote on Instagram Wednesday, reports 12 News. "I am safe. I am OK. It could have been much worse." In an accompanying video, McSally explained she'd been jogging on a trail on the Iowa side of the river when "a man came up behind me and ... engulfed me in a bear hug," per the Arizona Republic.

McSally, who represented Arizona in the Senate between 2019 and 2020, added that the man then "molested and fondled me," until she was able to push him off and pursue him, cursing the whole way. "I ran after him, I threw my water bottle at him, and I chased him into the brush, where he was then hiding as I called 911 and waited for the police to come," McSally said in her video. "I was in a fight, flight, or freeze [situation], and I chose to fight." Authorities in Council Bluffs, Iowa, say McSally did indeed contact them, and that the incident is under investigation.

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McSally has mentioned past incidents of sexual assault against her. In 2018, she revealed she'd been sexually abused as a teen by her track coach; the following year, McSally noted in a Senate hearing that she'd been raped by an Air Force superior. Now, "I still have a lot to process," McSally concluded in her Instagram post, adding, "For anyone else who has been assaulted, speak up. Find your power. Process it emotionally, spiritually, neurologically." Then, a reminder to us, and herself: "I am safe." (More Martha McSally stories.)