Three 16-year-old boys dragged a barely conscious 33-year-old woman from a Manhattan Internet cafe into the street, raped and beat her in the stairwell of a nearby building and stole her underwear and purse before running off, a criminal complaint alleges.
The criminal complaint, obtained by NBC New York Wednesday, provides new details surrounding Monday's early-morning attack in Chinatown.
The teenagers allegedly sneaked out of Boys Town, a group home in Brooklyn where police sources said they were known to stay, and went to the cafe on Eldridge Street, where they encountered the woman shortly before 4 a.m.
Surveillance video from the cafe shows the teenagers groping the woman as she repeatedly tries to push them away, the criminal complaint says. The video also shows the three suspects grab her and pull her out the door, into the street, according to the complaint.
The woman told detectives her next memory was of being in a stairwell, surrounded by the teenagers, one of whom was engaged in a sexual act while the other two beat her, the complaint says.
After that, the woman told detectives her next memory was of being alone in the stairwell; her shirt was inside out, her camisole and underpants that she had been wearing were missing and her driver's license, cellphone, credit cards, keys and money were gone.
One of the teenage suspects allegedly admitted to police that he had sex with the woman in the stairwell; another said he tried to have sex with her, the criminal complaint says. A man who has raised one of the suspects since he was a toddler told NBC New York the teen told him he was drugged by one of his friends, also one of the accused, and doesn't remember what happened.
Local
At least one of the teenagers later used the stolen keys and information from the woman's driver's license to gain access to her apartment. Surveillance footage from the woman's building shows three people walking inside, pulling up the hoods on their sweatshirts and going up a stairwell. They run down the stairs and out of the building less than a minute later.
Police have said the teenagers allegedly had planned to rob the woman, but saw someone inside her home when they opened the door and fled. They were arrested Tuesday on a bevy of charges, including first-degree rape, robbery, assault, burglary and grand larceny.
The woman was taken to a hospital, where she was treated for "severe bruising, swelling, and substantial pain over her entire body, including her face, torso, arms and legs," the criminal complaint says.
One of the teenagers is being represented by a private attorney, Albert Dayan. Dayan told NBC New York he wanted to adjudicate all of the issues in court once he had the opportunity "to examine the videotapes, the totality of the statement and the information and forensics if there are any."
"In connection to the reported statement that he made that may be construed as an admission, this would not be the first time that a young man was coerced by police into making statements and admissions that ultimately prove to be false," Dayan added.
Another is represented by Brad Foster, a lawyer with the nonprofit group New York County Defender Services. Foster did not immediately return a voicemail message. The third suspect is represented by Legal Aid, which does not comment on its cases. Bail was set at $100,000 cash.
Boys Town declined comment on whether the suspects lived at its Brooklyn facility.
"Because of privacy laws we cannot confirm whether these youth are in our care," Kara Neuverth, a spokeswoman for Boys Town, said in a statement. "However, we take any allegations of criminal activity by our youth seriously and cooperate with authorities."
The man who had raised one of the suspects told NBC New York the boy was sent there because he didn't like going to school, not because he was a child who broke the law.
