New Orleans - FOX 8 has uncovered a shocking pattern of allegations involving a local cab driver arrested for allegedly raping a passenger.
As a result, the director of the Taxicab Bureau of New Orleans is pushing for changes in how cabbie licenses are handed out.
In early September, 25 year old Thayer Hamdalla was arrested, after a 26 year old woman told NOPD he allegedly raped her when he picked her up at the intersection of Baronne and Gravier.
The United Cabs driver was booked with aggravated rape, although his attorney, John Thomas, says it is a case of mistaken identity.
Hamdalla is still in Orleans Parish Prison on a $750,000 bond. His arrest has some questioning why he was driving a cab to begin with.
Fox 8 has uncovered since 2006, Hamdalla has been arrested at least a half dozen other times in three parishes.
In court documents, we found more than a dozen misdemeanors and felony arrests. In November 2006, Hamdalla was accused in a road rage incident that ended with his arrest in the 22-hundred block of Canal Street. He was booked with aggravated assault, but the charges were refused by the Orleans D.A.'s office two months later. In August 2007, in Jefferson Parish, records show he was arrested on charges of unauthorized use of a credit card. He plead guilty and in June of this year was sentenced to three years probation.
Lisa Arnold may be more shocked than anyone at the news of Hamdalla's latest arrest for alleged rape.
She says, "I don't understand how it's even legally possible in any sense for him to still have a license and drive a cab."
Arnold says two years ago, she and her boyfriend, with her two kids, were driving on the I-10 between Laplace and Kenner, when they encountered a taxi going slow in the fast lane and tried to get around the cab a couple of times. Arnold says Hamdalla was driving the United cab that day and started shooting at her SUV. Police arrested Hamdalla and charged him with attempted manslaughter in St. Charles Parish.
Arnold says "I just felt so vulnerable and scared and it happened so fast, I couldn't even grab my kids to protect them."
She wonders why the cabbie was ever allowed back behind the wheel. Fox 8 posed that question to the director of the New Orleans Taxicab Bureau, Sidney Bournes. He denied Hamdalla a license renewal in October of 2007, after he was arrested for attempted manslaughter, but he says Hamdalla hired an attorney and fought to get his license back. By law, the Taxicab Bureau had to give the driver his permit, since he had no felony convictions, just arrests, on his record.
Bournes says , "We saw all of that stuff on his record. We fought to keep him out of the system, but the law sort of overruled us."
Bournes says the public should be very concerned, which is why he says he will push the city council to change the law to allow some room for judgement in the licensing process.
"There has to be something in there where we can look at the facts and circumstances of a case, and make a decision based on that. It can't be so cut and dry."
Bournes says even if the cab driver gets out of jail, he will not re-instate his license.
"I'm not going to let him. No way. And if that's the test case for civil court, then bring it on," says Bournes.
United Cabs refused to talk to FOX 8 about this story.
Hamdalla's attorney says he's confident his client will be cleared in both the New Orleans rape case and the case of attempted manslaughter in St. Charles Parish.
