The arrest of an Athens taxi driver and the reported intimidation by another driver has some students worried about their post-downtown transportation.

United Taxi driver Robert Louis Sims, 56, was arrested and initially charged with armed robbery and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

The armed robbery charge was dropped Thursday, according Capt. Clarence Holeman of the Athens-Clarke County police. The charge of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon remains.

According to the police report:

A male University student got a cab outside Little Italy on Lumpkin Street Wednesday morning and asked to be driven to Springdale Street.

The driver instead drove him to somewhere “behind downtown,” and told the student he had to pick someone else up. The driver stopped and spoke with a female in an undetermined location.

The student was scared and told the driver he had a concealed weapons permit. The driver told the student he had a gun too. The driver then produced a large Swiss army knife and demanded the student’s money.

The student threw his cash – between $60 to $80 – and jumped out of the taxi at a red light at the intersection of North Peter and the Ga. 10 Loop.

Before jumping out the taxi, the student grabbed the driver’s Atlanta Braves baseball hat. He called the police around 3:53 a.m. When the student talked to the police he was admittedly intoxicated.

An officer went to the United Taxi main office, where he saw someone pulling out in a white Cadillac. The officer followed the Cadillac, driven by Sims, and pulled it over after dispatch reported a driver in a white Cadillac who intimidated patrons and overcharged.

Sims told the officer he had just gotten off a slow night of work, and his last fare was in front of City Bar on College Avenue at 1 a.m.

The student was driven to the scene and positively identified the 6-foot-3-inches, 275 pounds Sims, as the driver who robbed him. “Oh my God, that’s him!” the student told police. The report then states that later, as he was writing his statement, he began to doubt his identification.

Police searched Sims’ vehicle and found two pistols – a Falcon .38-caliber revolver and a Phoenix Arms .25-caliber Raven semi-automatic pistol – loaded with six hollow point rounds each in the dash, along with $58.99. No knife was found.

Sims had been found guilty of felony aggravated assault in the mid-1970s, making it illegal for him to have a gun. Sims was arrested and taken to Athens Clarke-County jail.

The United Taxi dispatch told police Sims had not been dispatched that night, and Sims had no record of clients he had driven that night.

A large Swiss army knife was not found in the taxi.

“You can’t imagine how mad that makes me,” said Howard Blackwell, a driver for United Taxi, in a phone interview with The Red & Black. “It makes a bad name for all of us.”

Blackwell assured that Sims was fired from United Taxi, but said there are still many bad drivers out there.

“Things happen all the time. Even before I was a cab driver I heard about the horrible rides kids get.”

He said many students are scared to call the police about a taxi incident if they are drunk and underage.

In a separate case, two Gainesville students told police about the suspicious behavior of “Taxi Pete” who they said worked for United Taxi.

Ossman, co-owner of United Taxi, said he had never heard of “Taxi Pete.”

According to the police report:

The students said they call “Taxi Pete” on his direct phone number, for which he gives them a low fare. They have stayed in the cab longer than their route, sometimes hours longer, and “Taxi Pete” talks to them.

They have seen “Taxi Pete” go into the home of clients, smoke marijuana and steal things like beer. The driver charges people more based on how intoxicated they are – sometimes doubling the amount and putting the extra money in his other pocket.

Clients feel intimidated by “Taxi Pete,” and do not say anything when he wants to take things.

“Taxi Pete” has picked one of the students up in a personal two-door white Cadillac.

“Taxi Pete” was fired from the cab service where he worked before, but he would not tell the students why.

The students said he has called them multiple times, including over Spring Break, to see if they were home. They feel he is targeting their house for robbery.

“He knows where they live, what they drive, what they own and where their friends live and drive,” the police report said.

The students are scared of “Taxi Pete,” and fear him because of the stories he tells.

“Taxi Pete” is described as a black 230-pound male around 34 years old who is about 5 feet 10 inches.