GRAND HAVEN, Mich. - An Uber driver is still in shock over a rider's crude and sexual advances over the Labor Day weekend. It happened just after midnight early Sunday morning on a ride from Grand Haven to the Ferrysburg, Spring Lake area.
Cindi Chute tells 13 ON YOUR SIDE it was around 12:05 a.m. early Sunday when she picked up a man up on Washington Avenue in Grand Haven. He got into the car, and the Uber ride started. What happened in the minutes that followed is something she says she will never forget.
"We had a nice conversation. We were having fun but looking back, I realized how all he talked about was sex," Chute said.
Chute says the man talked a lot throughout the trip, but it was at tail end of the ride she started seeing red flags.
"He kept saying turn here, turn here, no, stop, turn around. So that was putting an alert in my mind right there and then."
Then, things escalated quickly.
"He was asking for sexual favors from me, and I had told him I was married which he didn't care about at all," Chute said. "My tendency is to be super nice to people when I'm uncomfortable so in the video it looks like there's no problem I'm having a good time with this guy. I just wanted him out of my car."
The man eventually gets out the car and Chute is left terrified. She calls her husband in tears.
"It's not okay," she said. "He had a backpack with him. I don't know what he had in that backpack."
Chute did alert Uber about the incident and filed a report with the Ottawa County Sheriff's Office but has chosen not to press charges.
"Obviously he's troubled and I don't condone what he did but we are not pressing charges," Chute added. "But we are praying for him."
Kayla Whaling, an Uber spokesperson, responded to the September 2 incident saying, "The behavior reported is not tolerated on the Uber app and has no place anywhere. We have permanently removed this rider's access to Uber."
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