Lynn man charged in sex assault with baby on board
A 26-year-old Lynn man is accused of sexually assaulting a Winthrop woman while police say he had an infant along with him in the back seat.
Gerardo Elenilson Portillo pleaded not guilty in East Boston Municipal Court yesterday to various charges including assault to rape, strangulation or suffocation, indecent assault and battery, and reckless endangerment of a child. He was held pending an Aug. 5 hearing to determine whether he is too dangerous to be released.
Officers responding to a report of a disturbance at about 10 p.m. Monday went to the 7-Eleven on Revere Street in Winthrop, where they found a woman sitting on the ground, crying.
The woman told officers she was walking along when a man with short black hair, tattoos on his arms and hair on his chin pulled up in a grey Honda with a baby in the back seat and asked her to get into the car, police said.
When she refused, he offered her $100 and drugs to perform a sex act, the woman told police. When she refused again, he got out and grabbed her by the throat; tried to strangle her; threw her on the ground and tried to pull her shorts and underwear down, police said.
The woman screamed, and he punched her in the face, fracturing her nose, before running back to the car, police said.
A search of the license plate number the witness gave them showed the Honda was registered to a woman whose Facebook page had photos showing her with a man matching the description of the attacker, police said.
Officers went to the woman’s Lynn home, and she told them her boyfriend, Portillo, was using her car on Monday night to pick up their daughter at the Winthrop Arms Hotel, where her mother was watching her, police said. He was arrested shortly afterward.