Two years ago, college student Elisa Lopez was sexually assaulted on the New York City subway while she was asleep. An onlooker took a video, which quickly circulated online. Despite having the assailant's face on video, New York City police were unable to apprehend him, and Lopez says she got the run-around from authorities.
But last week, police arrested Carlos Churva, 43, and charged him with first-degree aggravated felony assault.
Lopez told Cosmopolitan in December that the assault and the fact that a video of it went viral left her depressed and suicidal, but that she has worked hard to recover. A member of the Air National Guard, Lopez says she wants to pursue a career helping other assault survivors.
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Jill Filipovic is a contributing writer for cosmopolitan.com. She is the author of OK Boomer, Let's Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind and The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness. A weekly CNN columnist and a contributing writer for the New York Times, she is also a lawyer.
