Suspect in rape of Bronx teacher caught

A SICK predator who raped and robbed a teacher in her Bronx apartment building Thursday has been caught, police said.

The stranger grabbed the 23-year-old victim in the entrance to her apartment building on Park Ave. in Concourse Village and put her into a headlock about 1 a.m., cops said.

The woman passed out. When she woke up a few moments later, her attacker was raping her, cops said.

When he was done, the suspect took her cash and wallet and demanded she give him her PIN before running off down the stairs.

The creep withdrew $500 from the victim’s account, police sources said.

Medics rushed the woman to Lincoln Hospital.

A police officer spotted the attacker and arrested him Thursday. The cop rec-

ognized the man from a surveillance photo. Charges against the suspect — whose name was not released — are pending.

The victim had just returned from a date with her boyfriend when she was attacked on the elevator, authorities said.

Her mother recalled her panicked daughter's cries as she pounded at their apartment door.

“She said, ‘Help me mommy, help me,’” the mother said. “‘He raped me, mommy.’ She was devastated.

“She said, ‘It’s my fault.’ She felt guilty for what happened.”

The victim is a high school English teacher, according to her mother.

The mother said she moved her family to their current Bronx apartment when her daughter was a toddler.

The teacher started her job in September, and had plans to take a break to further her education.

She said her daughter looked much different after the attack than she did in recent graduation photos.

“I think he punched her,” the mother said of her brute who told her daughter not to call the police.

“She’s scared because the person who attacked her, he knows she lives here," her mom said.

“He has her ID, and then he comes to find her and kill her. She’s scared.”