Alleged pervs ‘netted’

A Queens Village resident who is a member of the Manhasset-Lakeville Volunteer Fire Department and a former member of the Glen Oaks Volunteer Ambulance Corps has been charged with the statutory rape of a 16-year-old girl at motels in Queens and on Long Island and with the online possession of child pornography.
In an unrelated case, a 27-year-old unemployed security guard has been charged with attempting to meet for sexual relations a person he had met online and whom he believed to be a 14-year-old girl. The alleged victim was actually a New York City Police Department undercover detective assigned to its Vice Enforcement Division.
The defendant charged with rape has been identified as Raul Thomas, 26, of 215-18 Hollis Avenue in Queens Village. Thomas, a volunteer fireman, was arraigned before Queens Criminal Court Judge Ira Margulis on three counts of using a child in a sexual performance, one count of first-degree disseminating indecent material to minors, 97 counts of promoting a sexual performance by a child, three counts of third-degree rape, two counts of third-degree criminal sexual act and one count of endangering the welfare of a child. Thomas, who faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted, was ordered held on $100,000 bail, to stay off the Internet, and to return to court on May 22. Additionally, a full order of protection was issued in favor of the victim.
It is alleged that, beginning in November 2007 and ending on April 9, 2008, the defendant engaged in either oral or sexual intercourse with the teenager in his car or at motels in Queens and Nassau Counties.
A court-authorized search warrant was executed at Thomas’s residence and numerous desktop and laptop computers were recovered, along with several external hard drives and external storage media. At the time of his arrest, Thomas allegedly admitted having instant message conversations with the teenager, as well as having sexual intercourse and oral sexual contact with her.
In the second case, on Saturday, May 3, unemployed security guard Emmanuel Maldonado, 27, of Brooklyn, was arraigned in Queens Criminal Court on charges of second-degree attempted rape, second-degree attempted criminal sexual act, first-degree attempted dissemination of indecent material to minors and attempted endangering the welfare of a child. Maldonado, who faces up to four years in prison if convicted, was ordered held on $10,000 bail and his next court date is Monday, May 19.
According to the charges, an NYPD Vice detective was operating in his undercover persona as a 14-year-old girl from Queens and visiting a public chat room on the Internet on the evening of April 15, when he began receiving instant messages from the defendant, who was using the screen name “manny556955.” Once the detective confirmed he was a 14-year-old girl who lived with her grandmother, the defendant allegedly responded that he was 27 years old and began asking intimate questions about her physique and what she liked to do sexually, as well as when she might be alone in the house. Shortly before ending their conversation for the evening, the defendant allegedly asked, “U not a cop or something?”
It is additionally alleged that the undercover detective and Maldonado had several more Internet conversations between April 16 and May 1, during which the defendant gave the undercover his cell phone number and continually tried to persuade the undercover to drop her insistence that he wear a condom when they met and had sex.
On May 1, Maldonado allegedly contacted the undercover through the Internet and stated that they should meet the following day at the Fresh Meadows movie theater at 190-02 Horace Harding Expressway.
The next day, the undercover detective and other members of his team were in the vicinity of the movie theater with the female undercover officer who had previously spoken by phone to Maldonado. At approximately 5:40 p.m., the defendant allegedly arrived in a black Nissan Maxima and approached the female undercover. The two then proceeded to a nearby Boston Market restaurant at 61-45 188th Street. During their meal, Maldonado allegedly told the undercover he didn’t want to go to the movies but to her home. The undercover said that if they were going to do what the defendant had talked about online, then he would have to get some condoms. Maldonado allegedly agreed and as they walked back to his vehicle and he opened the passenger door for the undercover, he was taken into custody.