After a weeklong search, law enforcement agents in South Carolina picked up the person of interest sought in connection with a vicious Kew Gardens Hills sex assault last week.
Ronald Williams, 21, was picked up at a motel in Columbia, SC, in an operation that U.S. Marshals, the NYPD Fugitive Task Force and the NYPD Special Victims Squad jointly conducted on May 8. Sources familiar with the investigation said they located Williams through the results of an ongoing and thorough investigation.
Williams is now being extradited back to New York City to faces charges of violating his probation connected to his conviction of assaulting and attempting to rob a Bronx woman in January of 2017.
Upon arriving back in the boroughs, WCBS-TV reported, detectives will question Williams about his alleged involvement in the April 30 sexual assault that left a 52-year-old woman seriously injured.
Officers from the 107th Precinct and EMS units responded to a 911 call about the injured woman who was found at the bottom of a stairwell in the vicinity of Kissena Boulevard and 72nd Road. The victim had been returning home after dropping off a child at a nearby school, it was reported.
Paramedics rushed the woman, who suffered head and body trauma, to a local hospital in serious condition.
On May 3, police released video of a person of interest in the case, later identified as Williams, riding the Q44 bus about an hour before the attack occurred. The Q44 operates between Queens and the Bronx and makes a stop at the corner of Main Street and 72nd Avenue, about three blocks west of where the woman was attacked.
Cops had offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the victim’s attacker.
Pleased to announce an arrest in the brutal sex assault of a 52-yr-old woman that occurred in Queens on 4-30-18. In alliance w/ the community & the US Marshals, the unwavering members of @NYPDSVU & the Fugitive Enforcement Div. identified, located & arrested Ronald Williams. pic.twitter.com/cQMPUxKjOv
— Chief Dermot F. Shea (@NYPDDetectives) May 8, 2018
