NEW YORK.- The Anglo-Saxon and Hispanic press published this Friday that a priest of the Catholic Church “Our Lady of Lourdes”, located at 463 West 142nd Street, between Amsterdam and Convent avenues, in the upper manhattan, stopped the sexual violation against an unidentified parishioner inside the temple.
The 68-year-old woman, unidentified and a resident near the church, entered the premises at around 10:00 p.m. on January 30 when she saw the doors open, and in that, the beggar Craig Ellis, 55 years and 43 previous arrests, he grabbed her, covered her mouth, took her to the bathroom, locked himself in, and began punching her and crashing her against the wall, before sexually assaulting her.
The aggression culminated when the priest Gilberto Ángel-Neri, seeing the open doors of the church and hearing screams, rushed to the scene, making the attacker flee from the temple.
The homeless man was arrested hours later and charged with a series of charges ranging from attempted rape and sexual abuse to robbery and assault. The judge asked for $100,000 cash bail, in addition to subjecting him to numerous psychiatric evaluations as the criminal case progresses, according to court records.
The woman and her husband are now suing, claiming church administrators knew of the danger the attacker posed to community residents and failed to take the necessary security measures to prevent the incident.
There were already several complaints against Ellis for allegedly exposing his private parts to women around the church.
