Ruthless rape try
Susp allegedly refused cash, demanded sex before beatdown
A ranting sexual predator punched and choked an Upper East Side woman whose offer to surrender her cash was rejected with a crude demand for sex and a swift kick to the face, authorities charged Saturday.
Alleged would-be rapist Desmond Smith, 32, had initially flattened the woman with a sucker punch before wrapping both hands around her neck to keep the victim from screaming, according to a detailed criminal complaint.
Once Smith let go, the 37-year-old woman “offered the man her purse and wallet,” the complaint said. “But he said in substance that he did not want her wallet, he wanted her p---y. He began to remove her shorts and underwear.”
When the brave victim bit Smith’s hand, the homeless suspect bit her in the back of the head and kicked her in the face — leaving the woman with a fractured skull, the court papers said.
His ferocious pounding eventually left the victim with a fractured sternum, too, along with cuts, swelling and bleeding from her face, lips, forehead, eyes, chin, neck, arms and legs.
Smith was ordered held on $350,000 bond or $175,000 cash bail on charges of assault, attempted rape and strangulation during his arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court Saturday.
The assault occurred between two parked cars about an hour before midnight on the Fourth of July after the woman exited an Uber at Central Park West. The complaint claimed that Smith approached the woman and asked her to look at his phone as she walked west on W. 84th St.
When she declined and kept strolling, Smith knocked the woman to the ground with a single punch to the face before the intensity of the one-sided beatdown continued, authorities charge.
“He then repeatedly punched her about the face and body, and he wrapped his hands around and squeezed her neck, thereby preventing her from yelling or screaming,” the complaint alleges. When Smith loosened his hold, the woman howled for help, eyewitnesses said.
Smith fled the scene shortly after a nearby doorman heard the shouts and ran to the woman’s aid, even snapping a photo of Smith. The badly-beaten woman initially fled the scene before calling police and going to a local hospital for treatment of her myriad injuries.
The criminal complaint made mention of the picture taken by doorman Earnest Pjetri, who was chased by the suspect as the victim made her escape. Pjetri said he went looking beneath parked cars for the woman after evading Smith, who was arrested Thursday.
Smith admitted to authorities to being the shortswearing man caught on surveillance video walking away from the attack site, according to court papers.
The bearded suspect lived in the Skyway Men’s Shelter on W. 83rd St., and security video showed the attacker wearing a pair of black-andwhite sneakers later recovered inside Smith’s residence, officials said. He is due back in court for a July 17 hearing.
An eyewitness described to The News how the attacker tore off the victim’s skirt and underwear, leaving the woman half-naked and bleeding on the street.
Smith has an “extensive” criminal record, including a three-year prison stay for assault, according to cops.