A suspect has been arrested two days after the former US senator Martha McSally reported being sexually assaulted while jogging in Iowa before fighting the man and chasing him.
McSally said she was running along the Missouri River on Wednesday when the attacker approached and «abused and fondled me until I fought him off.»
The former military pilot said she ran after him but he managed to flee.
«I was either fight, flight or freeze and I chose to fight,» McSally said.
Dominic Henton, 25, of Papillion, Nebraska, was arrested early Friday morning by police in Omaha, Nebraska.
The suspect, believed to be homeless, faces a charge of assault with intent to commit sexual abuse.
McSally was the country’s first female fighter pilot to serve in combat before entering politics.
In 2019, he testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee during its investigation into sexual assault in the military.
Then-Arizona Senator McSally said a superior officer, whom she did not name, had raped her.
In a video posted to Instagram after this week’s attack, McSally said she had «touched a nerve» from past assaults.
«In this case, I felt like I took my power back,» he said. «He was running from me, not the other way around.»
After serving in the U.S. Air Force from 1988 to 2010, rising to the rank of colonel, she won two terms as a Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives.
McSally was appointed in late 2018 to replace longtime Republican Senator John McCain after his death, but lost the seat to Democratic challenger Mark Kelly in 2020.
