By Michelle Han
The man entered the girl's home near 98th Street and Jamaica Avenue through the basement door about 6 a.m. Friday and walked into the girl's bedroom, said Officer Theresa Farello, a police spokeswoman.
He raped the girl in her bed while her sister slept in a nearby bedroom, police said. He then stole several items, including a portable CD player, a TV cable box, a camera, and a purple Gameboy.
The girl was taken to Jamaica Hospital, where she was treated and released.
Investigators said they were awaiting the results of DNA testing on physical evidence recovered after the attack.
A sketch of the suspect was released over the weekend and police said they were looking for a Hispanic man described as between ages 18 and 25, 5-foot-8, about 180 pounds, with spiked, black hair, a medium complexion and a light mustache. He wore a red vest, baggy, gray pants and carried a red or orange duffel bag at the time of the attack.
“It was horrendous,” said Capt. Thomas Cea, commanding officer of the 102nd Precinct. “We have to take this guy off the streets.”
He described the victim's family, particularly the girl's mother, as devastated, and said the Police Department was pooling all its resources to apprehend the rapist.
The attack took place one day after police released a sketch of another rape suspect, wanted for targeting young girls in six recent attacks, three of them in Queens. Police said they do not believe Friday's rape in Richmond Hill was related to that pattern in which the rapist posed as a plumber to gain entry to the house and sexually assaulted young girls.
“It's a different method,” Cea said. “That guy poses as a plumber and gets in. This guy breaks in.”
He said it was possible the Richmond Hill rapist entered the home as a burglar and decided to rape the girl only after seeing her in bed.
While overall crime in the 102nd Precinct, which includes Richmond Hill, Ozone Park, Woodhaven and Kew Gardens, has dropped about 9 percent, the incident has pushed the number of rapes to 25 so far this year, nearly a 5 percent increase over the same period last year.
But the rape Friday was rare, Cea said, since in about 85 percent of the cases of sexual attacks in the precinct, the victim and the attacker know each other.
