A 45-year-old man with a lengthy criminal history has been charged with persistent sexual abuse and forcible touching in an incident that a New York University student called “honestly, the scariest experience of my life.”
Traumatized and shaken, Amelia Lewis took to TikTok to talk about a stranger who randomly attacked her Monday morning as she headed to class near the corner of Broadway and Waverly Place. She was also able to show, through surveillance video obtained by a nearby security camera, exactly how it happened.
“That’s him, right there, he literally targets me and does this,” Lewis says, noting “this” is when the bearded stranger with a towel around his neck hit her backside, yanked her hair, and pulled her to the ground.
Students who witnessed it helped her get up as the man walked away.
Lewis called for enhanced safety in her TikTok video, saying, “I am a student at NYU, I should not be scared to be walking the street to my 9:30 a.m. class.”
This latest attack is eerily similar to last year’s string of random punching attacks in the city. Back in March, at least five women came forward with stories of being sucker-punched by strangers while walking on the street. Police arrested and charged at least three men for those unprovoked attacks.
It is not clear if investigators believe James Rizzo, the suspect arrested in Monday’s attack, had any connection to those. Rizzo previously served time for a felony sexual abuse charge.
Multiple reports say he has more than a dozen prior arrests.
Information on a possible attorney for him in the latest case wasn’t immediately clear on Wednesday.