Officer Arrests Taxi Passenger for Assaulting Driver, Evading Fare

WARWICK, RI — Officer Jeremy Smith was called to the Apponaug Cumberland Farms at 3335 Post Road for a report from a taxi driver that his passenger had threatened him, then left his cab on foot without paying his fare.

Smith learned from dispatch on the way to the convenience store that the passenger, described as a bald man, had been wearing a white and black leather hooded sweatshirt, according to the officer’s report. Sgt. Nicholas Reay, the first officer to arrive, spoke with the cab driver, who told him the passenger had been reaching in his pockets and implying he was carrying a firearm, Smith reported.

Smith arrived at the location and began searching Post Road, finding a man matching the passenger’s description and pulled over to speak with him near the cemetery at 3438 Post Road. Smith identified the man as Vitaliy Goretoy, 39, of 241 School St., North Kingstown, according to the officer’s report.

Smith asked him where he was coming from, and if he’d been in a taxi.

“I’m not going to lie. I just got out of a cab. I know what this is about,” Goretoy said, according to the report.

Smith asked if he had cash to pay the cab fare, to which Goretoy replied that he had been planning to pay using a check, and didn’t have cash on him. Smith brought the driver to identify Goretoy, who confirmed he was the man who had threatened him and left the cab without paying his fare, $53.20.

In written statement, the cab driver said he had picked up Goretoy at the Biltmore Hotel in Providence. Goretoy asked to be taken to the gas station at the end of Post Road. When the driver told him he needed an address, Goretoy called the driver a motherf****r, according to the report, and told him to just drive, that he worked for the CIA. When the driver asked if he had money to pay the fare, Goretoy told him just driver, calling him a motherf****r again, said that he had the money at home, and pushed him in the back of the head, telling him, “Just drive, you cab driver. Go back to your country.”

The driver said when told him to stop talking to him like that and to not scream at him, Goretoy instructed him to take exit 10 off Rte. 95, and that he was scared by a noise in the back of the cab. The driver stopped and asked for the money again, and the man got out of the cab and ran away without paying, according to the statement.

Goretoy admitted to skipping out on the cab fare, but denied assaulting the driver, Smith reported.

Smith arrested Goretoy and transported him to Warwick Police Headquarters, 99 Veterans Memorial Drive, where he was charged with simple assault and evading a fare. He was scheduled for a hearing in Third Division District Court on Feb. 2, then Smith transported him home.

On the way there, according to Smith’s report, Goretoy told him, “I can’t stand people like that, these people come over here and think they run s**t. I don’t know what you call them, the f****ng towel head people. I know I’m an immigrant, too, but these people are different.”