NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – Police arrested a Bronx man on Friday in connection with a string of attempted sex attacks on women at an upper Manhattan park on Wednesday morning.
Elvis Nina Pichardo, 40, was arrested Friday night and faces a long list of charges, including attempted rape, robbery, sexually motivated assault, attempted criminal sexual act, attempted sexual abuse, menacing, assault, petit larceny and public lewdness.
The public lewdness charge stems from an incident on Wednesday evening, when a man exposed himself and committed a lewd act in public view inside of a spa on Sherman Avenue, near W. 207th Street, in Inwood, according to police.
Police said they then connected him to the three attacks on women in Inwood Hill Park earlier in the day.
The three women were targeted over the course of about an hour, according to police.
A 34-year-old woman was approached by a man at 11:21 a.m. Police said the man threatened to rape the woman before striking her in the head and robbing her of an iPhone and other electronics.
Minutes later, at 11:43 a.m., a 40-year-old woman in the park was approached by a man who threatened to sexually assault her and then demanded her phone as she ran away from him, police said.
Then at 11:57 a.m., a man struck a 44-year-old woman in the head with a tree branch in the park, according to police, who said the man repeatedly slammed her head on the ground.
The man then attempted to rape the woman before robbing her of a backpack containing an iPhone and other items, police said.
The woman suffered head trauma and was taken to Harlem Hospital by EMS.
The attacks led the NYPD and the Parks Department to increase patrols in the park, and residents organized walks through the area.
This isn’t Pichardo's first run in with the law. Records show he was in prison in Waco, Texas, for aggravated sexual assault and aggravated kidnapping after being sentenced in September 2008. He was released in May of this year and moved to New York.
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