Attempted Rapist Strikes Near Gracie Mansion

A sexual attacker reamins on the loose following an attack on a 19 year old woman a short distance from Gracie Mansion in the early morning hours on Saturday, Aug. 10.

Police said the victim was walking on E. 90th St. near East End Ave around 1:20 a.m. when she was shoved to the ground and molested by the suspect. A doorman heard her screams for help and rushed to her aid.

The doorman, identified in press reports at Hector Mateo approached with a flashlight, and the suspect ran off heading west on E. 90th St.

”She was in shock and scared and crying,” Mateo told the Daily News. “I hope that she is doing well today and recovers.

He said her shirt was covered in blood and he brought her back to the building where he worked while awaiting the arrival of police.

On Aug 10 police released a photo of the suspect, who remains at large.

It was the second violent crime to shatter the quiet upscale neighborhood in 15 days. Kathleen Leigh, a retired probation officer from Chicago who was suffering from terminal cancer, shot and killed her former daughter-in-law Marisa Galloway on July 26 before turning the gun on herself. Galloway, a former track star at Fordham University, had been a volunteer coach at the school and was and avid runner. She was involved in a bitter custody dispute over her three year old daughter with her ex-husband, the son of Leigh. Galloway also has a second daughter who was one years old at the time of murder.

A friend of Galloway’s, Marc Bellinger, started a Go Fund Me drive to aid her two daughters and honor her legacy and it had raised nearly $119,000 as of Aug. 12.

Police are seeking the public’s help in finding and apprehending the suspect in the attempted rape. As of Monday, Aug.12 he remains at large.

Despite the two violent crimes in the 19th Pct, NYPD Compstat figures show crime incidents through Aug. 5 actually declined 10.3 percent in the year-to-date to 1,330 incidents, down from 1,480 in the same period a year earlier. There were seven reported rapes in the precinct this year so far, the same number as a year earlier. The number of murders dropped to one from three a year ago.