A homeless man has been sentenced to prison for a brutal assault of a mother in Kew Gardens Hills in 2018, according to Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz.
Charles Williams, 24, pleaded guilty last month to assault and attempted sexual abuse for attacking the 52-year-old woman moments after she dropped her son at school.
Williams, whose last known address was a shelter on Rockaway Boulevard, pleaded guilty to assault in the first degree and attempted sexual abuse in the first degree before Queens Supreme Court Justice Ushir Pandit-Durant who sentenced Williams on Tuesday, July 6, to determinate term of 12 years in prison to be followed by five years’ post-release supervision.
Williams admitted that on April 30, 2018, shortly after 8 a.m., he attacked the 52-year-old woman and also attempted to sexually assault her in an apartment building’s outdoor stairwell near 72nd Road and Kissena Boulevard. Police from the 107th Precinct responded to a 911 call and found the woman unconscious with trauma to the face and body. EMS responded and transported the victim to NewYork-Presbyterian Queens, where it was determined she had sustained a fractured vertebra in her neck and a fractured orbital bone. She also required four staples in her head which is consistent with blunt force trauma, according to Katz.
Williams fled the state and was apprehended eight days later in South Carolina by the New York New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force and Special Victims Unit with the help of U.S. Marshals at a hotel in Columbia, S.C., and extradited back to Queens.
“This was a vicious attack on a woman just moments after she dropped off her son at school,” Katz said. “When she was found, she was virtually unrecognizable due to the extent of her bruises and injuries. Although the defendant attempted to evade justice, he was apprehended and has now been sentenced by the court.”
As part of his plea agreement, Williams is required to register as a sex offender pursuant to the Sex Offender Registration Act.
