Tony Kempsey, suspected of knocking a woman unconscious and then raping her on a desolate Queens street, has a criminal record that includes killing a Hispanic man who shot him on the New York City subway.
Kempsey, a 58-year-old homeless man, voluntarily surrendered to police yesterday after barricading himself inside a Brownsville (Brooklyn) apartment on Junius St. near Glenmore Ave. around 12:45 p.m., authorities said. He was charged with rape, assault, and sexual abuse.
He had been identified Wednesday as the suspect in the early morning April 30 rape of a 49-year-old woman on 48th Avenue near 72nd Street in Elmhurst.
NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig said the victim had left minutes earlier from a house party three blocks away to get some air when a man pulled up on a scooter and began talking to her around 5 a.m.
She then got on the scooter, and the attacker drove them to a block Essig described as “desolate,” where he attacked her and fled. The victim was rushed to Elmhurst Medical Center and is still recovering, the Daily News reported.
“The rape was captured on video, and it’s pretty brutal,” Essig said. “He throws her to the ground. He knocks her unconscious. She suffered a hemorrhage in her brain. She went through a very traumatic experience … so she doesn’t remember much.”
The rape was captured on video and it’s pretty brutal.”
James Essig, NYPD chief of detectives.
Records show Kempsey served three state prison sentences, the longest being 20 years for a homicide at the Roosevelt Ave subway station in Queens in 1992.
That time Kempsey fatally struck 20-year-old Amaury Rodriguez in the head with a martial arts weapon called a kama, which looks like a sickle with a short handle. The incident occurred while an NYPD detective held Rodriguez at gunpoint for shooting Kempsey moments earlier on an E-line train.
All charges are mere accusations, and the individuals being prosecuted are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.