Sex offender arrested in parking garage attack

A woman fought off a homeless sex offender who tried to assault her this morning in the stairwell of a downtown parking garage, police say.

A woman was walking from her car around 7 a.m. in the McDulin parking garage at the corner of Second and Market streets when a man allegedly reached under her skirt and touched her in a sexual manner, according to a news release from the Hamilton Police Department.

The woman was able to fight off her offender, and he ran away, according to police.

Within two hours police arrested a suspect, identified as David M. Patrick, 27, who police said is a known sex offender. Patrick is listed as a homeless man living in Hamilton, according to the Ohio Attorney General's Office online sex offender registry

Patrick is being held in the Butler County Jail on suspicion of gross sexual imposition; breaking and entering; and abduction, which are all felony charges. He is scheduled to be arraigned Friday morning in Hamilton Municipal Court, online jail records show.

Patrick, who is formerly of Middletown, was released -- 51 days before his arrest -- on June 24 by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. He served eight and a half months of his 18-month sentence for a 2013 conviction for attempted abduction in Butler County, online prison records show.

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