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THE WEEK OF DECEMBER 27, 2002
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In Park Gang Rape
Woman Assaulted For Three Hours
Four men have been charged with rape, sodomy, kidnapping and robbery in a brutal attack on a couple in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park during which the woman was sexually assaulted for almost three hours inside a makeshift shelter. Two others are being sought.
Queens District Attorney, Richard Brown identified the defendants as Luis Carmona, 20, Victor Cruz, 22, Jose Hernandez, 18, and Carlos Rodriguez, 22, each with no known employment or address. The defendants have been charged with Rape in the First Degree, Sodomy in the First Degree, Kidnapping in the Second Degree and Robbery in the Second Degree and face up to 25 years in prison if convicted.
It is alleged that the victims—a 38-year-old male and his 42-year-old female companion—were attacked at about 9:15 p.m. on December 19 in the vicinity of the Passerral Building in the northern part of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.
According to the charges, at about 9:15 p.m. on December 19, 2002, the couple was in an area between the Long Island Rail Road Shea Stadium stop and the Metropolitan Transit Authority 7 train stop when they were approached by the defendants and several unapprehended accomplices.
The charges allege that the defendants and their unapprehended accomplices beat and kicked the victims in the face and body causing bruising, swelling, abrasions and contusions all over their faces and bodies and substantial pain.
It is further alleged that the defendants and their accomplices took personal property from the victims including jewelry, a wallet and other items and that they dragged the woman to a shack some distance away while continuously beating her and that the assailants then took turns raping her while telling her that they would have to kill her because she could identify them.
The charges allege that after the victim was repeatedly raped Rodriguez forced her to orally sodomize him.
The defendants were arraigned on Monday in Queens Criminal Court before Acting Supreme Court Justice Barry Kron who remanded them without bail and set a return date of January 13, 2003.
“The defendants are alleged to have acted together as a gang, to have surrounded and attacked the couple in a deserted area, to have viciously beaten and kicked them, to have robbed them by taking their money and jewelry and then to have sexually assaulted the woman in a devastating ordeal of violation and terror,” District Attorney Brown said. “It is alleged that the defendants told the woman that they would have to kill her because she could identify them. The attack would likely have ended in her death but for the intervention of a New York City Police Department canine unit. The police dog interrupted the savage attack, saving the victim’s life.”
The investigation was conducted by Detective James Osorio of the 110th Precinct Detective Squad of the New York City Police Department and other detectives and police officers assigned to the 110th Precinct under the command of Lieutenant Stephen Jaworski and Detective Borough Queens under the command of Captain Thomas Ryan assisted by P.O. Kimberly Flechaus and police dog, Sean, of the NYPD Canine Team, Special Operations Division and prosecutors assigned to District Attorney’s Major Crimes Division.
Assistant District Attorney Donna Marie Golia of the District Attorney’s Special Victims Bureau is prosecuting the case under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney’s Majory Fisher, Bureau Chief, Kenneth Appelbaum and Lucinda Suarez, Deputy Bureau Chiefs, Frank DeGaetano and Karen Migdal, Supervisors, and Eric Rosenbaum and Denise Tirino, Senior Assistant District Attorneys, and the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Gregory Lasak.
It was noted that criminal charges are merely an accusation and that a defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.