An employee for Austin Water has been arrested after allegedly raping a woman, then dragging her with his truck as he attempted to rob her. Corie Cornist Jr., 31, was on the clock and driving in a truck owned by the city on Friday morning when he pulled up to a woman, who told police she had been walking near the interstate when Cornist asked her if she wanted a ride. When she got into the truck, according to an affidavit, he asked her for oral sex, becoming angry when she refused. He then pulled over and sexually assaulted her, the woman said. She escaped from the truck, but Cornist followed, pushing her into a bush and grabbing her phone. The woman told officers she had reached back into the truck’s window to take her phone back, but that Cornist rolled the window up and drove off, dragging her. Surveillance footage later reviewed by authorities “picked up the victim’s cries in pain and for help,” an affidavit reads, adding: “Eventually, the victim broke free and was run over by the truck.” She was found on the sidewalk by police, bleeding and with what appeared to be a broken hip. Cornist, arrested shortly afterward, said that the woman had begun “acting strangely” in his truck.
