Woman flees NYC after cabbie allegedly gropes her and is let off hook by DA Bragg: ‘I was so scared’
He’s hell on wheels.
An Algerian immigrant NYC cabbie driving without a partition or a camera allegedly assaulted two women in the back of his yellow taxi in separate incidents — and is still on the road, thanks to soft-on-crime Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, according to sources and court documents.
Mohammed Bellebia, 34, was allowed to plead guilty to lesser charges in at least one of the incidents, records showed.
One victim, Maile Bartow, 23, climbed into Bellebia’s yellow cab minivan around 2 a.m. on Nov. 10, 2024 to head home after a night on the town with friends, and said the hack touched her leg twice, ignoring her pleas for him to stop before groping her genitals, according to a lawsuit.
Bartow, who had always dreamed of living in Gotham and moved to the city in August after a stint in Nashville, left the Big Apple for good because of her NYC nightmare.
About a month later, on Dec. 12, 2024, Bellebia picked up a 2 a.m. fare, allegedly touching that woman’s leg throughout the ride and trying to remove the 33-year-old victim’s underwear, a law enforcement source told The Post.
He was arrested Dec. 19, 2024 and charged in both cases
“Oh my God,” Bartow gasped when she learned of the other alleged victim from The Post.
In Bartow’s case, Bellebia was facing misdemeanor charges of forcible touching and sexual abuse and could have faced a sentence from probation to a year in jail.
Instead, he pleaded guilty in March to disorderly conduct, a mere violation, and was set free on a conditional discharge — meaning he was get no jail time as long as he stayed out of trouble, records showed.
Bartow said Bragg’s office left her in the dark about the slap on the wrist.
The prosecutor “never told me that he pled guilty to a lesser charge,” Bartow said. “The only reason I was even informed was because I reached out three times — two of those were not returned.
“He’s back on the road driving the exact same taxi cab,” a disgusted Bartow said. “I wasn’t looped in at all. They didn’t ask me what I was OK with.”
Bartow encountered Bellebia around 2 am outside The Spaniard bar on West 4th Street, where he was parked in his yellow minivan cab waiting for a fare.
The California native had been living on the Lower East Side and working as a social media marketing specialist. She was only a 10-minute drive from her apartment, so she said goodbye to her pals and hopped in the cab.
“There was a line out the door …and it was really really cold. I just remember being tired,” she recalled. “I saw this taxi cab parked and I said ya know what, this was my sign to leave.”
Bellebia handed her his phone and told her to put in the address of her destination.
“The first thing I noticed was there was no partition blocking me from the driver,” she said. “He was so far back, was so close to me, I was almost sitting in the middle.”
As they drove off, Bellebia began speaking in a language Bartow didn’t understand — apparently speaking to the person he was video calling, a TLC violation — and something changed, she claimed.
“He starts talking to me, asking me all these questions. Where are you going, what’s your name, what do you do for work. I was trying to be courteous.
“At some point he reaches behind and puts his hand on my leg. I moved it off and said please stop.”
But Bellebia didn’t, she said.
“He does it again and starts putting his hand in my vaginal area,” she alleged, recalling how she froze before trying to take a photo with her phone so she would have proof of what was happening.
The driver, alerted by the camera’s flash, snatched the device, according to court papers. Bartow said he began trying to delete her photos.
“It escalated really quickly.”
He eventually returned her phone, and Bartow tried texting and calling friends for help.
“I decided to leave a voicemail so this will record it,” she said. “I left a voicemail, it’s basically me asking repeatedly, [saying] ‘I don’t have a picture of you please just take me home.’ I was starting to get more and more scared.
“I started to beg him, ‘Let me out!'” she recalled. “I didn’t want to make him any more mad than he was. I was so scared he was gonna kidnap or kill me.”
He pulled over on Division Street, a few minutes from her home, and let her out. She offered to pay for the ride, but when she didn’t have cash, Bartow said the driver sped off.
“That’s when I knew he did something wrong. My best friend was on the phone with me, I had to order a Lyft to get home. At that point I was super distraught,” she said. “I texted my friend the next day because I wanted to leave New York, because I was traumatized.”
The next morning, she went to police, Bartow said.
Bellebia was unaware of the Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit Bartow filed against him and Tranquil Taxi. The company could not be reached for comment.
“I finished the problem from a woman,” the Arabic-speaking hack from Bay Ridge told The Post, sharing paperwork from the criminal case showing it had been sealed. He then called a friend to translate, who quickly declined further comment on his behalf.
The charges in the alleged Dec. 12, 2024 incident are unclear. The case has since been sealed.
“Why is this a problem for you … my case is finished talk to my lawyer,” Bellebia said when reached for comment a second time, hanging up when asked if he was in the country illegally.
The charges in Bartow’s case were not bail eligible, a Manhattan DA spokeswoman said, adding the driver had no prior convictions.
“Survivors deserve clear communication through the course of a prosecution, and we have reached out to the survivor to apologize for falling short of that in this case,” the spokeswoman added.
The DA’s office is legally barred from sharing information about the sealed December 2024 arrest, they noted.
The cabbie’s license was suspended and he was off the road from December 2024 until March, when it was reinstated, according to a source.
Cabs are required to have either a partition or a camera system, but could be exempt if they have an in-vehicle camera, trouble lights or a cell phone with emergency dialing, the city Taxi and Limousine Commission said.
“TLC takes reports of driver misconduct seriously, and all instances should be reported to NYPD and 311 immediately to ensure bad actors can be taken off the road – and ensure it is permanent,” the spokesman said, noting the agency cannot take action on its own unless the public files complaints via 311.
The agency had no record of a 311 complaint from Bartow, and said a second person complaining about Bellebia did not respond when TLC tried to contact them.
”The ordeal suffered by Ms. Bartow is every woman’s nightmare,” said Bartow’s lawyer John Buza. “We are proud of her bravery in speaking up and we will do everything within our power to get justice for her.”
Bartow moved to Nashville about six weeks after the incident, but said she called the DA’s office repeatedly for updates.
“In January they had me sign a deposition. … I asked multiple times if there was an update. They never told me anything. Then they gave me the wrong spelling of his last name. I found out in September he was conditionally discharged,” she claimed.
Bartow, who said she’s been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder and suffers from flashbacks and night terrors, is seeking unspecified damages under the state’s Gender Motivated Violence Act.
“This is already such a horrible process for a victim,” she said of the lack of communication from Bragg’s office. “The fact someone did this … and he’s still driving a taxi is ridiculous.”
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