Rapist, out of prison just two months, charged with new attack

FORT WORTH — A 26-year-old man who'd been released from prison just two months ago after serving three years for sexual assault was charged Monday in connection with the rape of a Fort Worth woman last month.

Joe Louis Woods is accused of forcing a 22-year-old woman into his Ford Explorer on Jan. 22, driving her to a secluded dead-end road and sexually assaulting her.

Sgt. Pedro Criado, police spokesman, said during the attack, the victim spotted some of Woods’ identification cards in his SUV’s console and took them. Based on that evidence, investigators were able to obtain an aggravated sexual assault warrant for Woods.

He was arrested Wednesday and remained in the Mansfield jail this afternoon with bail set at $250,000. Woods’ arrest came less than two months after his release from prison for a 2006 sexual assault in Forest Hill.

Forest Hill police Lt. Dan Dennis said the victim in that case was a 19-year-old woman whom Woods had known about four or five months. He said the sexual assault took place in Woods’ Forest Hill residence in September 2006 and that Woods stopped the assault because the woman’s baby started crying.

Court records show Woods plead guilty in that case in November 2007 in exchange for a three-year prison sentence.

He was released Dec. 8 after completing his sentence but was required to register as a sex offender. He was currently living in southeast Fort Worth, Department of Public Safety sex offender records show.

In the most recent case, Criado said the 22-year-old victim was walking on East Davis Street when she noticed a Ford Explorer driving around the area. The woman told police the Explorer pulled up next to her and the driver offered her a ride. When she refused, she said the driver got out, grabbed her by her shirt and hair and forced her into his SUV.

She told police he then drove to her a secluded dead-end street and sexually assaulted her in the backseat, threatening her with a brick that he picked up from the ground and claiming he had a knife.

The woman told officers that after sexually assaulting her, the man told her, “I’m trying to teach girls like you a lesson for walking around in your tight clothes and thinking nothing can happen to you.”