SAVANNAH, Ga. — A man was arrested on charges of sexual battery after video appeared to show him grope a waitress working at a Savannah, Georgia, pizzeria, but not before the waitress dragged him to the ground after he groped her on the behind.
Savannah Now reported surveillance video at Vinnie Van Go-Go's shows customer Ryan Cherwinski, 31, walk past the waitress and grope her. The incident happened June 30 around 11 p.m.
People reported that the waitress, identified as Emelia Holden, 21, immediately turned around, grabbed Cherwinski by the collar and slammed him into a counter.
"I looked at him and I said, 'You don't touch me, (expletive)!'" Holden told People. "I didn't even think, I just reacted. I don't know how I reacted the way I did. I've never done that before.
“When I felt that happen, my first thought was that it was one of my friends,” she said. “It was a really intimate touch. His hand went further than it should have, so I was thinking, ‘There’s no way a stranger just did that.’”
Holden said Cherwinski, who is from Palm Bay, Florida, claimed he hardly touched her and was trying to push her out the way.
“Once the police saw the video, they immediately arrested him. There was no doubt that he did it,” Holden said.
Video of the incident first appeared on Reddit, later spreading elsewhere. Savannah Police Department spokeswoman Bianca Johnson confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the video was the same one police viewed in order to make an arrest.
“It actually made me really happy,” Holden said of the arrest. “I knew something like that would happen eventually. I’m just happy that it was handled.”
Cherwinski was released from jail July 2.