SANTA ROSA (BCN) -- The suspect in three roadside assaults against lone women drivers in rural Sonoma County pleaded not guilty to nine felony charges in Sonoma County Superior Court Thursday morning.

Thomas Boccaleoni, 44, of Cotati, faces a preliminary hearing on the charges May 21. He is being held in Sonoma County jail under $1 million bail.

The Sonoma County Sheriff's Department said there may have been as many as 13 instances since Nov. 18 in which a male driver attempted to or succeeded in getting female drivers to pull over on rural roads.

The man would stop the women under the pretense that there had been an accident or something was wrong with the woman's car.

Boccaleoni is charged with assaults on Nov 18, Jan. 6 and April 18, according to the Sonoma County District Attorney's Office.

The felony counts include assault with intent to commit rape, anal or genital penetration, sexual battery, threatening a crime with intent to terrorize and false imprisonment.

Boccaleoni was arrested at his home April 28. He was convicted in 2005 in San Francisco of groping four women as they sat in their vehicles in the Marina District.
 
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