Hamilton Police issued a public warning after a 22-year-old man accused of two violent sexual assaults was granted bail.
Leikeze Cheruiyot was released on bail, pending his trial, after a hearing on Monday. He was found living in the U.S. and extradited to Canada in November 2024.
Police reported that a woman was walking in Hamilton’s south end on July 13, 2022, around 9:30 a.m., when an attacker dragged her off a trail and into a wooded area.
The assailant gagged his victim and bound her wrists behind her back. The man started to assault the woman, but was interrupted by witnesses walking in the area.
Police said the attacker fled and was later seen on video in the area of Edgehill Dr.
In a second attack on Aug. 7, 2023, a 74-year-old woman was assaulted for more than an hour after a man entered her West Mountain home while she slept. The attacker left the home on foot.
Police said forensic evidence enabled investigators to connect the two sexual assaults.