Bond increased for Oxford man charged in Miami student attack

An Oxford man arrested early Saturday for allegedly sexually assaulting a 21-year-old Miami University student has been indicted by a Butler County grand jury on multiple felony charges.

MORE: Miami University employee jailed, accused in reported attack on student 

Brandon Levi Gilbert, 22, of the 100 block of Homstead Avenue, is now charged wit rape, attempted rape, two counts of kidnapping and felonious assault for the incident that occurred Sept. 29 in Oxford.

Gilbert was arrested within minutes of the incident. He was video arraigned in Butler County Area II Court on Monday where bond was set at $41,000.

On Wednesday, Gilbert was arraigned on the direct indictment in Butler County Common Pleas Court, where Judge Greg Howard increased bond to $75,000 with a 10 percent rule. If released, Howard ordered Gilbert wear a GPS monitor.

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Gilbert is schedule to be back in court for a pre-trial hearing on Oct. 17.

“Blood cur(d)ling screams” is how an Oxford police officer described what he heard just before seeing a Miami University student with only one shoe on run toward him early Saturday morning.

“She was shaking and trembling with fear. I noticed that she was covered in dead grass and leaves from head to toe and her waist belt was undone,” Officer Mark Ledermeier wrote in a police report obtained by this news outlet.

Ledermeier said the woman could hardly talk because she was breathing so heavily “from adrenaline and crying.”

The student told Ledermeier that a man had thrown her to the ground and had punched her so many times in her right ear that she was having trouble hearing out of it.

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While being attacked, the woman said she saw the lights from Ledermeier’s police cruiser, which was stopped nearby as he wrote a ticket for a vehicle registration violation.

“She stated that the male held her down on the ground and told her to ‘Shut up,’ likely because he witnessed my overhead lights as well. She stated that she fought back and punched the male several times as well to get him off her,” according to the police report.

During her screams and struggle, the man assaulting her fled on foot, the woman told police.

She later identified Gilbert, who police stopped nearby on East Central Avenue, as her alleged attacker.

Gilbert works for Miami University in a “buildings and grounds” role, and has been suspended without pay until his case moves through the legal system, according to a university spokeswoman.

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