Exclusive: Victim describes terrifying memory of attack by same man who assaulted Olympian Kim Glass
Court records showed that the homeless man who attacked a former Olympian had a frightening history of assaulting women for the past four years.
"He just came up behind me and he socked me," said attack survivor Irene Lee. "I felt like a car or bike ad hit me and I started stumbling forward and just crying."
She remembers the attack vividly. In August 2020, while she was an attorney at the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, Lee walked over to a Starbucks with a coworker in downtown L.A. when she was randomly attacked.
"I'm screaming out crying," she said. "Cindy is calling for help and a security guard pepper sprayed my attacker."
The same man who attacked Lee, 51-year-old Semeon Tasfamarean, also assaulted former Olympian and model Kim Glass last week when he allegedly threw a construction bolt at the silver medalist.
"Him or other people like that are going to hurt more people," Glass said in an earlier interview. "He's been let out enough now."
Glass demanded change after learning that her attacker had a pattern of offenses.
"Something has to change because what we're doing now is not ok," she said. "This man has been let out multiple times. He has done this to other people."
According to court records, Tasfamarean assaulted at least three other women before attacking Lee and Glass. In 2018, he chased down two women with a golf club and a hammer. In January 2020, records showed he pleaded guilty to striking a 19-year-old with a metal pole. Tasfamarean was placed on probation.
"It was obviously very alarming to me that I was the fourth woman, that's documented, that he has attacked," said Lee.
Tasfamarean went to jail for attacking Lee and violating his parole but with time served he was released earlier this year in January.
"As a victim when I spoke at the sentencing, I felt like I wasn't being heard," said Lee. "The judge was fully aware of his history even more privy to it than I am... The writing was on the wall."
Lee called on the system to do better and pay attention to patterns after her attacker went on to assault yet another person just six months after being released.
"By the grace of god Kim is alive and healing but I just can't imagine if he bashed her head in and she died," she said. "It would be just another murder in downtown L.A. I feel like this is entirely preventable."
Tasfamarean will be held without bail pending a psychological evaluation.
