Police are searching for more potential victims after they said a suspected serial rapist attacked three people, two of them teenage girls, in a span of four months in Queens.
Investigators on Thursday announced the arrest of 28-year-old Andres Portilla, who was charged with the kidnap, rape and aggravated sexual abuse of three people — a 21-year-old woman and two 15-year-old girls.
The alleged assaults began in Sept. 2022 in Elmhurst, which involved one of the teens, a runaway from Long Island, according to police. Then in December, another 15-year-old said she was kidnapped and assaulted near Yellowstone Boulevard and 62nd Avenue in Forest Hills.
It wasn't until after midnight on New Year's Day that police said the case expanded, when a 21-year-old woman said she was lured into Portilla's car to charge her phone near Queens Plaza South and 27th Street, then attacked.
The suspect was apparently spooked after finding a photo of a missing person flyer on one of the victim's phones, according to police. He let her go, and was quickly picked up by the NYPD.
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The family of the 21-year-old woman had filed a missing persons report.
It was not immediately clear how Portilla, who police said has a criminal record, allegedly made contact with the teen victims. Investigators are now searching to see who else he may have come in contact with.
A woman who lives at Portilla's home address police provided said she doesn't know the suspect, and neighbors said they didn't recognize him either.