Cops nab ‘person of interest’ in Queens park sex attack against 13 year old girl
NEW YORK — A migrant from Ecuador has been taken into custody for the horrific sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl in a Queens park, police sources said.
The suspect, who entered the U.S. through Eagle Pass, Tex. in June 2021, was taken to the 109th Precinct stationhouse for questioning. Charges were not immediately filed.
Detectives zeroed in on the suspect after someone recognized him from surveillance images cops released Monday and called 911, bringing police to a single-room-occupancy dwelling in Queens.
Police are calling the man a “strong person of interest.”
The attacker held the girl at knifepoint and violated her in Kissena Corridor Park in Flushing, Queens, on Thursday.
The victim had just finished playing soccer in the park with a schoolmate, also 13, when the tattooed man approached them with a knife around 3:30 p.m., cops said.
He demanded they follow him into a dense wooded area off the beaten path near Colden St. and Kalmia Ave.
When they refused, he flashed a “large machete-style knife,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said at a news conference Friday.
The attacker tied the kids’ wrists together using a shoelace and assaulted the girl.
He then robbed the two girls of their cell phones and ran off.
Cops quickly mobilized and put out sketches of the suspect and a distinctive tattoo of a boar on his chest.
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