4th Suspect Sought In Sex Assault Of Queens Churchgoer Has 14 Prior Arrests
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- The fourth suspect wanted in the sexual assault of a woman who was attacked at gunpoint while leaving church in Queens has been identified as a 20-year-old man with a long rap sheet.
Police said they're looking for Isiah Shorter, who has 14 prior arrests, in connection with the July 11 incident.
"We've been looking for him all weekend, we're going to continue to look for him," NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said.
Police released Shorter's photo to the public Monday.
Police said Shorter and the other suspects can be seen on surveillance video walking down 150th Street in Jamaica when one of them starts running towards the victim who had just left evening service and was walking to the subway.
Police said they held her up at gunpoint and stole her debit card and cellphone. Detectives say her clothes were then torn before the men sexually assaulted her.
She ran back to her church, Celestial Church of Christ, where her pastor called police.
The victim's husband spoke to CBS2's Erin Logan.
"She's not getting better," he said over the phone Monday. "She cries all the time."
He says his wife is a social worker who spends all her time helping people at work and going to and from the church. She barely misses a day of work, and now she's terrified to leave her home.
"They have done something so bad," he said. "Molested my wife emotionally, she's not well right now."
Shorter and the other suspects were living in a group home near the crime scene and neighbors have been asking why they weren't notified of the facility, 1010 WINS' Sonia Rincon reported.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said the shelters for youth are not typical homeless shelters, they're for teens who for whatever reason don't have a home to go to.
"We did not think it's appropriate for them to be in the other shelter facilities for adults, so that's a separate reality they tend to be pretty small," de Blasio said.
An employee at the group home tipped off police that the suspects in the sex assault were staying there, Rincon reported. The victim's husband tells CBS2 it's all thanks to a higher power.
"Prayer works so good," he said. "We know that they're going to be caught because they have done what they did to the wrong person. They have done that to a woman of God."
Twenty-year-old Brandon Walker, 17-year-old Justin Williams and 19-year-old Julisses Ginel are all charged with robbery, criminal sex act, criminal use of a firearm and sex abuse, according to police. Walker and Williams are also charged with menacing, authorities said.
Ginel and Williams have also been accused in a separate crime — they allegedly robbed three men at gunpoint the night after the assault. They have been charged with first and second degree robbery in that incident.
