{"id":60118,"date":"2025-12-03T21:46:05","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T21:46:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/60118\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T21:46:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T21:46:05","slug":"career-criminal-busted-for-attacking-nyu-student-on-her-way-to-class-allegedly-randomly-shoved-another-woman-on-nyc-street-days-earlier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/60118\/","title":{"rendered":"Career criminal busted for attacking NYU student on her way to class allegedly randomly shoved another woman on NYC street days earlier"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0homeless ex-con\u00a0accused of randomly assaulting an NYU student<\/a>\u00a0on her way to class committed an eerily similar attack just days earlier in Manhattan, cops said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

James Rizzo<\/a>, 45 \u2014 who has 16 prior busts on\u00a0his rap sheet\u00a0\u2014 allegedly shoved a 68-year-old woman as she walked on Fifth Avenue near West 47th Street around 8:45 p.m.\u00a0in an unprovoked Thanksgiving Day attack,\u00a0police said.<\/p>\n

The disturbed career criminal allegedly struck\u00a0the victim with his elbow without warning, hitting her so violently that she tumbled to the ground and suffered a cut, cops said.<\/p>\n

NYU student Amelia Lewis in an undated photo from social media. @amelia.lewis16<\/p>\n

Jana Dianne Brazell, a retired college professor from Texas visiting her sister-in-law in the Big Apple, told The Post they had just left the Macy\u2019s Thanksgiving Day Parade when she was attacked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was about a step or two behind her and out of nowhere this guy appears in my face and starts talking crazy talk, like, \u2018Our whole society is a f\u2014ing joke, right?’\u201d Brazell recalled.<\/p>\n

The moment an NYU student is attacked by a serial creep. Storyful<\/p>\n

\u201cHe stepped back,\u201d she said. \u201cI thought, thank goodness he\u2019s moving away. The next thing I know, I\u2019m flying in the air and I hit this glass wall at the side of a building. I just slid down.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis whole encounter with him was like six seconds,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was so fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

The unhinged perp\u2019s spree continued Monday morning, when he allegedly came up behind 20-year-old Big Apple coed Amelia Lewis on Broadway near Astor Place, slapped her head and buttocks and pulled her hair in a shocking attack, police said.<\/p>\n

Brazell, who was visiting her sister-in-law in new York City, was attacked by Rizzo just after the Thanksgiving Parade. Obtained by the NY Post<\/p>\n

He was charged Tuesday with assault in both incidents, including\u00a0persistent sexual abuse and forcible touching for the attack on Lewis \u2014 and with a burglary just hours later.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just really want to emphasize how not OK this is,\u201d\u00a0Lewis said of the assault on X<\/a>. \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

NYU student Amelia Lewis in an undated social media photo.\u00a0 @amelia.lewis16<\/p>\n

He was also slapped with another assault charge for allegedly slapping a 59-year-old woman in the face at random on Dec. 18, 2023, on Mercer Street near West 3rd Street, authorities said.<\/p>\n

The suspect, who got out of prison in September, was tied to the crimes after cops \u201ccaught him in the act\u201d burglarizing an apartment near Washington Square Park on Tuesday, police said.<\/p>\n

Police connected Rizzo to four burglaries committed in the same building at Bleecker and Mercer streets, all from around 1 a.m. Tuesday, cops said.<\/p>\n

NYU student Amelia Lewis discusses being assaulted on social media. @AmeliaLewi33832<\/p>\n

The theft victims included a 28-year-old man who woke up to find that his suitcase and backpack were missing, another man, 29, had his backpack, three laptops and headphones stolen and a 58-year-old woman who had $3,150 in items taken, according to police.<\/p>\n

A fourth victim, a 58-year-old man, reported having his yoga mat and a water container stolen from the building, cops said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just feel very lucky,\u201d Brazell, the woman attacked on Thanksgiving, said Wednesday. \u201cVery lucky that he didn\u2019t have a weapon or that it didn\u2019t happen in the subway station and throw me on the tracks.\u201d<\/p>\n

James Rizzo, 45, is charged with persistent sexual abuse, forcible touching and assault, cops confirmed.\u00a0 William C Lopez\/New York Post<\/p>\n

Despite the horror, she said the ordeal hasn\u2019t soured her on visiting the Big Apple in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a random event by one mentally ill person,\u201d she said. \u201cIt could have happened in Houston. It could have happened to anyone, anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rizzo\u2019s arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court was pending\u00a0on Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The\u00a0homeless ex-con\u00a0accused of randomly assaulting an NYU student\u00a0on her way to class committed an eerily similar attack just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[303,9182,2000,57,9,24,55,54,56,22460,3644,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-60118","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-crime","9":"tag-groping","10":"tag-homelessness","11":"tag-metro","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","15":"tag-new-york-city-news","16":"tag-ny","17":"tag-nyu","18":"tag-sexual-harassment","19":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60118","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=60118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}