A Pittsburgh man suspected of sexually assaulting women on a popular jogging lane got more than he bargained for when he tried to strip the pants off a woman who proved to be a United States Marshal on Tuesday, The Patriot-News reports.

According to court documents, Robert Flynn, 19, ran up to the U.S. Marshal, groped her buttocks and pulled down her shorts. The marshal — who is not named, as she was the victim of a sexual assault — pulled up her pants and identified herself, yelling, “Federal marshal! Stop!”

She then asked passersby to call 911 while she pursued Flynn, who was attempting to flee on foot. The marshal caught up with him in a nearby apartment complex, where she cornered him behind a staircase. Flynn “attempted to charge” the marshal, who “feared that [he] was going to assault her again,” so she kicked him in the crotch, grabbed him by the shoulder, then repeatedly punched him in the face.

Flynn was subdued by the time police located the marshal. When they asked him for his name, Flynn said it was “Johnson.” When they asked him for his first name, he said, “I don’t know my first name.” He then refused the officer’s offer to tell his side of the story, only saying, “I plead the Fifth.”

Flynn faces multiple charges of aggravated and indecent assault in this attack, and police are trying to determine whether he was responsible for a string of recent assaults of a similar nature in the area.

The marshal hurt her pinky finger in the fight, but was treated and quickly released from Pittsburgh’s Mercy Hospital that same night.





Watch a report on Flynn’s arrest via WTAE 4 below.