A Eugene man plead not guilty to charges of molesting two University of Oregon international students near campus and is scheduled to stand trial on April 30.
Thirty-five-year-old Christopher Warren Mack is charged with two counts of first-degree sexual abuse, two counts of third-degree sexual abuse and two counts of public indecency. @@name checked@@
According to The Register-Guard, he entered his pleas this week at an arraignment at Lane County Jail, where he has been held since his arrest on Feb. 6.
He is accused of grabbing two women’s breasts near the UO campus on two separate incidents last August. According to court documents and other records, both women are UO international students from Asia.
In the two first-degree charges, he is accused of using force against a victim in an incident on Aug. 23 and forcing the victim to touch him. According to UO Police Department reports of an Aug. 23 incident, a man asked a female student for directions near Matthew Knight Arena. He then came up behind her, grabbed her chest and pushed his hips into her lower back, leaving semen on her clothing.
Mack was identified as a suspect using DNA evidence.
He is also believed to be linked to additional incidents near the UO campus also on Aug. 23, when a man with a similar description was reported exposing himself to women near the UO School of Law.
A week earlier, UO police received reports of a similarly described man asking women for directions to the law school. According to reports, he then touched their chests.
Because first-degree sexual abuse falls under Oregon’s Measure 11 sentencing law, Mack could potentially serve a sentence of over six years in prison.