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Man arrested after downtown attack on woman
By joe gorman
youngsgtown
Police arrested a man Monday afternoon who they say attacked a woman downtown last week.
Mateen Abdullah, 51, is in the Mahoning County jail on charges of assault and abduction, said Chief of Detectives Capt. Mark Milstead. He is expected to be arraigned in Municipal Court today.
Police said he was arrested Monday after a woman he is accused of attacking Sept. 3 saw him and alerted officers.
The woman said in a police report that she was walking out of 20 Federal Place at 7 p.m. Sept. 3 when a man followed her out of the building and asked her why she was walking on the street by herself.
The woman said she was walking to meet her boyfriend, and the man grabbed her by her hair and demanded a kiss, reports said. She tried to pull away but the man said he would kill her if she screamed. She screamed anyway, and the man ran away, reports said.
The woman then ran back to 20 Federal Place and called for help, reports said.
Police said they reviewed surveillance cameras downtown but were not able to generate any leads until the woman saw Abdullah as she was going to work Monday. She called police and followed him until they arrived, reports said.
Police said Abdullah has served time for rape in Tennessee and felonious assault in Mahoning County. In 2010, he was sentenced to four years in prison for a 2009 attack on a girlfriend in which he cut her with a box cutter and ran away. He was caught a short time later by police. He also was ordered to undergo alcohol counseling and was placed on three years’ probation.