Rape animal busted
Held in vile attack on 82-year-old woman
THE SUSPECT in the brutal beating and rape of an 82-year-old Brooklyn woman was hardly as tough when finally collared by the cops.
Accused sexual predator Asa Roberts, 18, put up his hands and surrendered meekly when cornered before dawn Friday to end a four-day manhunt, sources told the Daily News.
“I’m here to give up,” said the newly pacifist teen, who had allegedly threatened to kill his octogenarian victim if she called the cops after the Monday morning rape and assault that lasted more than four hours.
Although Roberts chopped off most of his Afro while on the lam, the victim picked him out of a lineup Friday afternoon, sources said. Later, just around midnight, Roberts was ordered held without bail after being arraigned in Brooklyn Criminal Court. He faces an avalanche of charges, including rape, robbery and assault.
The arrest of Roberts — whose rap sheet includes a sex charge when he was 9 years old — came after his mom tipped cops to his new cell phone number, sources said. The signal led police to his girlfriend’s home, and he was arrested about eight hours later.
Roberts, his hands cuffed behind his back as cops led him from the special victims precinct in Brooklyn, insisted he was innocent of raping and sodomizing the helpless senior citizen at the end of a night of terror.
“I’m sorry for being in her house,” said Roberts. “I apologize, but I did not rape the lady. That’s all I have to say. Have a nice day.”
He put a knife to the senior citizen’s face after surprising the victim inside her darkened bedroom, cops said.
Roberts, who narrowly averted arrest Thursday night by jumping out a window and down the fire escape of his girlfriend’s Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment, was finally nabbed at 3:50 a.m. on Friday.
Neighbor Jeremy Edelstein, 25, who lives right below the girlfriend’s second-floor home, said the building became a madhouse as Roberts eluded the cops. Police officers “were coming off the fire escape, off the roof,” he recounted. “All I know is that when I came out, I saw someone climbing over the fence.”
Roberts eventually found refuge in the Putnam Ave. home of a city probation officer, who was awakened by the sound of cops banging on his door in a sweep of the neighborhood.
As the officer went to let the cops in, he found Roberts standing shirtless and barefoot in his living room, sources said. The police entered and quickly arrested the suspect.
At his Friday night arraignment, the disheveled defendant wore a red hooded sweatshirt and interrupted several times to complain about being photographed.
His mother and grandmother were in the courtroom, and as he was led out in handcuffs, they both yelled, “We love you. We love you, son.”