Kidnap and rape
Police arrested a convicted sex offender on Mon. Feb. 9 after he allegedly grabbed a woman from the street at Second Ave. at E. 12th St., forced her into her car and sexually abused her during a two-hour ride through Manhattan, the Bronx and back to Manhattan.
Police stopped the car, which had a broken taillight, at Second Ave. and E. 119th St. after it had cut off a patrol car at about 8:20 a.m. The victim, a 24-year-old medical student, got out of the car and told police that she had been raped, police said. She was treated at a nearby hospital.
Charged with second-degree kidnapping, first-degree criminal sex act and first-degree sexual abuse was Richard Padilla, 41, of Huntington Station, L.I., a married man with three children who had been convicted in 1987 for a sexual attack in the Bronx. Police said they found a false state police badge and an undisclosed quantity of marijuana in Padilla’s book bag.
The kidnapping occurred shortly after the victim dropped her husband off at work and was emerging from a coffee shop on Second Ave. in the East Village. The suspect told the victim he had a gun, forced her into her car and fondled her as he drove north to the Bronx where he parked in a lot and raped her, police sources said.
Padilla was being held without bail this week.
West Village assault
A Village resident who was taking photographs in the snow at the corner of Charles and Greenwich Sts. at 11:40 a.m. Sun. Feb. 12 was assaulted by a stranger who made antigay remarks and punched him, police said.
The victim, 43, said the stranger was watching him for awhile before he made remarks about his hat, calling it “the kind of hat that gays always wear.” The suspect fled after punching the victim in the mouth.
Illegal billposting
Department of Sanitation inspectors are investigating the source of illegally posted handbills in the Village, East Village and Chelsea.
Inspectors on Jan. 24 found 162 handbills advertising “$19 moving” pasted on property on W. Fourth St. from Washington Square to Ninth Ave.
Sanitation officers on Jan. 9 also found 143 illegally posted bills offering “$19 moving” in Chelsea and the East Village in the vicinity of 15th, 16th and 17th Sts. between Seventh and Eighth Aves. and on 11th, 12th and 13th Sts. between Avenues A and B.
Albert Amateau
