Suspect in attempted rape of Central Park sunbather charged
Police on Wednesday charged the man accused of attempting to rape a woman sunbathing in Central Park, cops said.
Jermaine Longmire, 43, was already in police custody for a separate forcible touching incident when cops linked him to the June 24 assault in the Great Hill section of the park near W. 104th St. and West Drive, according to authorities.
He was being held at a Rikers Island jail for an earlier attack in the same neighborhood when his DNA was found on the Central Park victim’s bikini bottom.
Police used facial recognition to further link him to the assault, cops said.
The DNA came back as a positive match for Longmire, and cops charged him with attempted rape and sexual abuse for the attack.
The 21-year-old woman was tanning when the hulking 6-foot-2, 190-pound man charged at her as he masturbated, according to prosecutors.
The woman got up, screamed and tried to run away, but Longmire tackled her from behind and attempted to rape her as he held her down, officials said.
“She fought back and she fought back hard,” Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said Wednesday. “The survivor began to physically struggle with the perpetrator while screaming for help and it is believed that it was her actions that caused the perpetrator to get off of her and run away.”
Longmire ran off and a witness spotted him heading toward W. 104th St., according to authorities. Later, he swapped shirts and put on a hat in an attempt to change his appearance, prosecutors said.
The victim suffered injuries throughout her body during the attack, police said.
Three days later, detectives with the Manhattan Special Victims squad arrested Longmire for the June 15 attack on a Brooklyn-bound A train platform at the 103rd St. station, where he allegedly reached under a 27-year-old woman’s dress and grabbed her buttocks.
He was charged with forcible touching and sexual abuse for that attack and was being held on a $7,500 bail when detectives began looking at him for the nearby Central Park attack, the Daily News previously reported.
Following a Wednesday arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court, Longmire was held without bail.
“Our parks should be a place where New Yorkers can relax without fearing for their safety, and this alleged conduct will not be tolerated,” Manhattan District Attorney Bragg said in a statement. “Our Special Victims Division has the resources to both hold offenders accountable and support survivors as they heal.”
Longmire has been living in an uptown Manhattan homeless shelter and has numerous prior arrests across the country, prosecutors said.
Longmire was previously charged with sex assault, aggravated assault, battery and theft, among other crimes in Florida and possession of a handgun, trespassing and assault in Maryland, they said.
He served over two years in an upstate New York prison for attempted burglary and was released in 2005, records show.
