Man Meets Woman Online, Gets Robbed

A man who met a woman online and came to town for a sexual rendezvous ended up getting pistol-whipped and robbed, according to the Arlington County Police Department.

The man met the woman on an online solicitation site during the day Friday, said police spokesman Dustin Sternbeck. She initiated a one-on-one meetup to have sex, Sternbeck said.

The man took the bus into Arlington, where he called what he believed to be the woman's personal cell phone number. This was in the 5000 block of Columbia Pike, in or near the Columbia Heights West neighborhood.

The phone was answered by a different woman, one who claimed to be a relative of the woman the man was attempting to meet. She told the man she would meet him and take him to a nearby apartment complex, where the intended woman was waiting for him, Sternbeck said.

"As soon as he hits the treeline, the wooded area, that's when the two subjects approached him," Sternbeck said.

Two male subjects wielding handguns approached the man and told him to lay down. They pistol-whipped him and took $80, a cell phone and two Metro cards, according to police.

Police are trying to determine if this attack is related to on 8th Road South, Sternbeck said.

"Hopefully we get cooperation from these online solicitation pages," he said. "We do make contact with them and say this is part of a criminal investigation. It's a long drawn-out process. Our detectives are fully aware that we've had recent incidents of a similar nature."

Police are seeing an uptick in crime related to online solicitation, Sternbeck said.