Police Arrest William Giraldo In Connection With Sunset Park Rape
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A suspected sexual predator is off the streets. He's already charged in one vicious attack. Now police want to know if he's responsible for preying on other women in Brooklyn.
Rape suspect William Giraldo refused to answer reporters' questions as he was led out of the Brooklyn Special Victims Unit in handcuffs on Tuesday.
Police say on June 4, Giraldo attacked a 28-year-old woman in the vestibule of her Sunset Park apartment building, throwing her to the ground and raping her.
Giraldo was later identified as a suspect through surveillance video from a nearby Dunkin Donuts. Police said the 24-year-old Brooklyn man admitted the person seen in the video was him.
"We have an individual that actually turned himself in and that he is the one on the tape. But he claims that he didn't have anything to do with the crime," NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said.
Police said the rape victim picked Giraldo out of a line-up. Detectives are still investigating if Giraldo is responsible for three other violent sex assaults in Sunset Park, Bay Ridge, and in Park Slope, where a 24-year-old woman's brutal sex assault and horrifying screams were caught by a surveillance camera.
"When there's something like that going on it makes me feel like I can't go out at night," Clinton Hill resident Charity Tooze said.
News of an arrest in at least one attack was welcomed news to women in the affected Brooklyn neighborhoods who had been living in fear.
"I hope that he's the guy that did it and that he's brought to justice," Park Slope resident Naomi Frank said.
"I think it's great for the women in this area," another resident said.
"If he's connected to the other assaults then all the better. But hopefully they don't stop looking in the meantime, until they know for sure whether or not he's connected to the other crimes," Park Slope's Tracy Solomon added.
