Harvard grad student charged with indecent assault on woman on Red Line in Cambridge

By John R. Ellement, Globe Staff

A Harvard University graduate student and teaching fellow pleaded not guilty today to charges of indecent assault on a woman on a Red Line train in Cambridge last month, officials said today.

Bradley J. Spencer was arrested Friday after he was identified as the person whose picture was posted on a transit police wanted poster in stations and on the Web in connection with the assault.

Bradley J. Spencer (MBTA Transit Police Photo)

Spencer, 36, of Fitchburg, was arraigned today in Cambridge District Court in Medford on one count of indecent assault and battery. He was released on $1,000 cash bail, and will be required to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet beginning tomorrow, said Jessica Pastore, spokeswoman for the Middlesex district attorney’s office. He was ordered to stay away from the T and public transportation.

According to an official briefed on the investigation, Transit Police were tipped off to Spencer’ s identity by a Harvard employee.

According to transit police, a 32-year-old Cambridge woman reported to authorities that she boarded the Red Line at Harvard Square on Nov. 28. As the train neared Kendall Square Station, a man indecently assaulted her below the waist, then got off the train at Park Street in Boston.

At the time of the incident, the suspect was described as wearing a gray tweed sport coat, a blue collared shirt, and a red-and-gold college-type ring.

Spencer was enrolled as a graduate student in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the time of the incident, said spokesman for the school Jeff Neal in an email to the Globe today.

Spencer will not be teaching at the university next semester, Neal said.

“In cases where a student has been accused of a serious crime, that student is often asked to leave campus during the course of the investigation and legal proceedings, pending their outcome,” he said.

Spencer has been an instructor or a teaching fellow in four courses at the college since 2009 and taught a course on the Dead Sea scrolls at Harvard Extension School this spring, according to his resume.

A call to Spencer’s lawyer, Stephen Linehan, was not immediately returned.