Former UWM professor charged with sexual assault fled country after ordered to surrender passport

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- A former UW-Milwaukee professor charged with sexually assaulting two students has left the country, and a warrant has been issued for his arrest.

Anthony Azenabor was fired from the university back in April. 

He denied the accusations made against him during the university's investigation, but has since fled the country.

Azenabor is charged with sexually assaulting two students on campus. Last week he failed to show up for court.

Attorneys say he's left the country. "You don't see this happen very often," attorney Julius Kim said. "We don't know why this gentleman left, but whether he left because he thought conviction was imminent, or for some other reason, we don't know."

Kim is not connected with this case, but explains what it means now that a bench warrant has been issued for Azenabor's arrest.

"It's just a warrant authorizing all officers to bring someone back to them," he said. 

Azenabor was out of jail after posting his $7,500 cash bail, but because he failed to show up last week, he loses that money. 

He was also ordered to surrender his passport, so it's unclear how he left the country.

"Usually when someone is ordered to surrender a passport, they are given a certain amount of time to do that," Kim said. "Maybe this all happened during that window of time."

In some cases, the court finds it's not worth the expense to bring someone to court from another state or country, but in serious cases they will.

"Now this particular person was charged with a pretty serious offense or offenses, and I think there's a high probability that they would choose to extradite him even from a foreign country," Kim said.

If he's caught he'll go before a judge where they will reset his bail amount, and he could face more charges for fleeing