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Men arrested months after allegedly slashing a teenager in Queens, NYPD says

A Queens slashing that took place in December has resulted in two arrests, police said on May 26, 2016.
A Queens slashing that took place in December has resulted in two arrests, police said on May 26, 2016. Photo Credit: Getty Images / Spencer Platt

A pair of men have been arrested more than five months after they allegedly slashed a 16-year-old girl in the face with a box cutter in Queens, police said on Thursday.

The victim, a Chinese exchange student, was slashed twice, including from her ear to the middle of her throat, police have said. She was attacked from behind by a man in a surgical mask and gloves as she walked to school on Dec. 16, 2015, on East 13th Avenue, near 147th Street, in the Whitestone area of Queens.

The first suspect, 25-year-old Wilson Lai, was arrested at his Queens home and charged with numerous offenses, including hiring the second man to carry out the slashing. But as investigators looked into Lai — who has 10 prior arrests — they realized he had been in a relationship with an underage girl, a law enforcement official said. Investigators figured out that he had been having sex with a 14-year-old girl and charged him with second- and third-degree rape, and acting in a manner injurious to a child, the official said.

Attorney information for Lai, who is scheduled to be arraigned on May 31, was not immediately clear.

A second man, 37, was also arrested at his home in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and was being held there awaiting extradition. The man, who was not immediately identified, also had several interactions with the law in New York, and had accumulated eight prior arrests, a second law enforcement official said.