An attempted rapist who has terrorized South Slope and surrounding neighborhoods since March attacked his fifth victim last Friday.
In the latest harrowing attack, the creep grabbed a 28-year-old woman on Aug. 26 as she walked home from the Prospect Avenue subway station near Fourth Avenue.
The victim was near Prospect and Sixth avenues in South Slope at 8:45 pm when the man grabbed her from behind and tried to fondle her. She kicked and screamed until he fled and didn’t sustain any injuries.
Capt. Christine Doherty of the 72nd Precinct — which comprises Windsor Terrace, Sunset Park and a small portion of South Slope — said that the suspect is a thin man, about 30 years old, standing 5-foot-6 to 5-foot-8. He was last seen wearing a white T-shirt and black baseball cap.
“We believe this individual maybe responsible for the other previous attacks,” said Doherty.
The brute has attacked at least four other women in South Slope, Sunset Park and Bay Ridge, usually late at night:
• The sex fiend first attacked a 24-year-old woman on March 20 at 11:30 pm on 16th Street between Fourth and Fifth avenues.
• On May 3 at 11:20 pm, the thug wielded a knife and forced a 32-year-old woman into a driveway on Ridge Boulevard in Bay Bridge, but she managed to escape.
• On May 29, he attempted to rape a 20-year-old woman near 55th Street in Sunset Park.
•On June 25, he followed a 36-year-old Sunset Park woman to her lobby at 4 am, but she scared him off.
Residents in Windsor Terrace and Greenwood Heights are fuming that the would-be rapist has gotten this far.
“We don’t exist to the [72nd] precinct,” said Bo Samajopolos. “All the cops did was put out fliers telling us what we should do. But they should be the ones protecting us!”
Samajopolos said that back in March, he and other community members offered video from his building’s security camera showing the first attack, but officers ignored him.
It wasn’t until Samajopolos circulated the shocking footage to news media that cops amped up patrols.
The video shows the victim desperately trying to fend off the attacker, who put her in a chokehold and tried to remove her jeans.
Police originally linked the suspect to a completed rape on June 4, when a man followed a woman from a Dunkin’ Donuts in Sunset Park to her home. After the store released a surveillance video, a livery cab driver turned himself in.
The rape victim picked him out of a lineup, but the three other would-be victims did not.
Anyone with information regarding this man’s identity is urged to contact Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-8477 or by visiting the Crime Stoppers website at a056-crimestoppers.nyc.gov/crimestoppers/public/index.cfm. Police say that all calls will be kept confidential.
