It was only months ago that Metro was being criticized for not taking sexual harassment on trains and buses seriously. Today the transit agency is touting the success of its online reporting system in helping catch and convict a man for masturbating on a train. Said Metro in a press release this afternoon:

On July 26, Metro Transit Police responded to Reagan National Airport Station for a report of a male subject masturbating aboard a train. Responding officers detained Scott based on witness descriptions, and he was positively identified at the scene by two passengers who were aboard the train.

Because Scott’s description and actions were similar to two open indecent exposure cases being investigated by MTPD, a transit police detective responded to the scene to further question Scott.

The responding detective found that Scott was wearing a shirt bearing the logo of a popular national restaurant chain. The restaurant shirt matched descriptions from two previously reported incidents: one reported online earlier the same day and one reported the previous day.

Scott pleaded guilty this week to two counts of indecent exposure and was sentenced to two years in prison, with all but four months suspended. (A contributor to Collective Action for Safe Spaces! recounted a similar story of a train masturbator in mid-July, though it’s not clear that it’s the same person.)

Metro set up the online reporting tool in March, shortly after a D.C. Council hearing where women complained that the agency wasn’t doing anything to stem the problem of sexual harassment. Since then, according to Metro spokeswoman Caroline Lukas, the agency has received 70 complaints from the online tool. In April, Metro launched an anti-sexual harassment public service campaign.

“We continue to encourage our customers to continue using the online tools, and we will continue to aggressively follow up on all reports of sexual misconduct on Metro,” said Lukas.