{"id":59213,"date":"2025-12-03T02:22:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T02:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/59213\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T02:22:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T02:22:11","slug":"homeless-career-criminal-with-history-of-targeting-women-busted-for-shoving-groping-nyu-student-in-random-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/59213\/","title":{"rendered":"Homeless career criminal with history of targeting women busted for shoving, groping NYU student in random attack"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The violent vagrant arrested for\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/12\/02\/us-news\/nyu-student-hit-shoved-to-the-ground-in-shocking-random-attack-on-way-to-class\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">attacking a 20-year-old NYU coed<\/a>\u00a0in an unprovoked attack Monday morning has a troubling history of cowardly assaults on women, The Post has learned.<\/p>\n<p>James Rizzo, a 45-year-old homeless brute with 16 prior busts, including for sexual abuse and forcible touching \u2014 and even a 1997 murder rap \u2014 was charged Tuesday evening with shoving college student Amelia Lewis to the ground as she walked to class in Lower Manhattan on Monday morning.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:0.68673051;display:block\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"37827259\" width=\"405\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2025-lewis-posted-social-media-116598503.jpg\" alt=\"Surveillance footage of NYU student Amelia Lewis being attacked by an unidentified man on Broadway.\" class=\"wp-image-37827259\"  \/>Suspect James Rizzo is a career criminal with a history of sexually assaulting women and was once arrested for murder in 1997. Storyful<\/p>\n<p>The serial creep was slapped with persistent sexual abuse, forcible touching and assault charges for the random attack on the 20-year-old, cops said.<\/p>\n<p>Rizzo was connected to the crime after cops \u201ccaught him in the act\u201d of burglarizing an apartment near Washington Square Park on Tuesday, police said.<\/p>\n<p>He was also charged with four burglaries allegedly committed in the same building \u2014 three of which happened as residents inside were sleeping, according to cops. <\/p>\n<p>Rizzo was released from state prison in September after being sentenced to two years behind bars on a persistent sexual abuse conviction, online correction records show.<\/p>\n<p>He was back on the streets around 9:30 a.m. Monday, when he allegedly ran up behind Lewis, smacked her buttocks, grabbed her hair and threw her to the ground before running off.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:0.5625;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"37827266\" width=\"332\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2025-explaining-allegedly-assaulted-walking-116578375.jpg\" alt=\"Amelia Lewis, an NYU student, speaks in a social media video about being allegedly assaulted while walking to class.\" class=\"wp-image-37827266\"  \/>NYU student Amelia Lewis discussed details of Rizzo\u2019s attack on her in a social media post following the horrific event. @AmeliaLewi33832<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just really want to emphasize how not ok this is,\u201d the victim said in a tearful online video post after the attack. \u201cI\u2019m honestly still in shock, but I\u2019m more enraged that things like this are able to happen in this city, and we really need to do something about it because this is unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rizzo\u2019s lengthy rap sheet includes charges that he grabbed a 33-year-old woman\u2019s breasts on Green Street in Manhattan on Dec. 27, 2023, snapping at the woman, \u201cOh, you want more?\u201d, according to law enforcement sources.<\/p>\n<p>Additional reporting by Steven Vago<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The violent vagrant arrested for\u00a0attacking a 20-year-old NYU coed\u00a0in an unprovoked attack Monday morning has a troubling history&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[303,9182,57,9,11,10,22460,3644,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-59213","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-crime","9":"tag-groping","10":"tag-metro","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-news","14":"tag-nyu","15":"tag-sexual-harassment","16":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}