Rideshare Driver Charged in Teen Assault Was Illegal Immigrant; Screening Gaps Examined
A Maryland rideshare driver charged with kidnapping and raping a 17-year-old passenger entered the United States illegally from Guinea and had a recent New York arrest involving alleged sexual abuse of a minor, authorities said this week. The case has drawn attention to how background-check policies—shaped in part by equity, fair-chance, and re-entry considerations—are applied at companies that also hold U.S. government contracts and partnerships.
Abdoulaye Dia, 36, of Lanham, Maryland, was arrested Sept. 16 after Montgomery County police responded to a hospital report of a rape. The victim, identified as 17, told officers she ordered a ride through the Empower app, that Dia drove past her destination, stopped in a Silver Spring parking lot, and sexually assaulted her. He faces charges of first-degree rape, kidnapping, second-degree assault, and third-degree sex offense. Detectives said they believe there may be additional victims.
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed Dia, a citizen of Guinea, crossed the border illegally near Lukeville, Arizona, on Dec. 21, 2023, and was released into the United States. DHS also said he was arrested in New York City on June 10, 2026, on charges that included sexual abuse by forcible compulsion, forcible touching, injuring a child under 17, and sexual abuse without consent.
Empower, a smaller booking platform that markets itself as software rather than a transportation company like Uber or Lyft, said it ran a background check, sex-offender check, driving-record check, Social Security trace, and global watchlist search on Dia on July 16, 2026, and that those checks “did not reveal any incidents.” The company said it cooperated with police after they contacted it. Empower has faced legal disputes in the District of Columbia over registration, insurance, and screening requirements; court records previously alleged it did not always meet the same standards applied to larger platforms.
Larger companies such as Uber, which maintains federal and state government partnerships including a General Services Administration blanket purchase agreement and Uber for Business programs used by public agencies, have publicly described their screening rules as a balance between safety and “fair access to work.” Uber has said it worked with lawmakers, screening experts, and civil-rights advocates when it first built background-check standards across dozens of state adjudication systems. Those systems often incorporate Ban-the-Box and Fair Chance principles that delay or limit consideration of older criminal records to reduce barriers to employment, including for people with past convictions and for groups that face higher rates of contact with the justice system.
Until June 2026, Uber’s policy in many states used a seven-year lookback for most felonies other than murder, sexual assault, kidnapping, and terrorism. A New York Times investigation found the company had approved drivers with violent-felony, child-abuse, assault, and stalking convictions if those records were older than seven years. After the reporting and related lawsuits, Uber expanded lifetime bans to all violent felonies and sexual-nature offenses, stalking, and strangulation-related crimes, and moved toward lifetime Social Security traces. The company said it consulted civil-rights and women’s-safety groups on the update. It also noted that overlapping federal, state, and local laws—including those intended to support re-entry—can restrict what records companies and background-check vendors may use.
Uber’s government work includes mobility and voucher programs for public agencies, and at least one documented partnership supporting reentry into the labor market. Those contracts sit alongside the same screening framework the company applies to its consumer platform. Empower’s lighter regulatory posture and the timing of Dia’s New York arrest relative to its July check have prompted questions about whether similar equity-oriented limits on lookbacks, real-time record updates, and immigration-status verification leave gaps when platforms serve the public, including through government-adjacent work. Neither Uber nor Empower is accused in this specific Maryland case; Dia drove for Empower. Police and DHS have not publicly detailed whether immigration status or the New York charges were visible in Empower’s vendor search.
Rideshare Driver Charged in Teen Assault Was Illegal Immigrant; Screening Gaps Examined
Abdoulaye Dia, an Empower driver from Guinea released after a 2023 Arizona crossing, is charged with kidnapping and raping a 17-year-old in Maryland. How fair-chance hiring and government-partner screening rules factor in.
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