Tenants Assoc. Calls Town Hall as Stuy Town Teen Rape Suspect Faces 17 Count Indictment

The homeless man who was arrested for the vicious rape of a 14 year-old girl in Stuyvesant Town is now facing a 17 count felony indictment for the attack on Jan. 29.

Meanwhile the Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village Tenants Association, which was blocked by management from speaking at a webinar for residents on the violent attack on Feb. 12, is calling its own in person Town Hall. It is set for 7 p.m. at the Septodont Lecture Hall which seats 440 people the NYU School of Dentistry, 345 E. 24th St. off First Ave. on Thursday, Feb. 26. Advance registration is required.

The suspect, Germaine Parham, who had 30 prior arrests, was captured days after the incident and remains remanded on Rikers Island without bail.

Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village is a 110 building complex containing about 11,200 apartments owned by the hedge fund Blackstone and Montreal-based real estate developer Ivanhoe Cambridge. The complex is managed by Beam Living.

The Tenants Association, which alerted residents to the sexual assault on Jan 31 before management had notified the 30,000 tenants, faulted management for failing to address ongoing safety concerns.

”Beam Living should remain open to all suggestions and work constructively with residents and the TA to develop effective measures and implement them,” said TA president Susan Steinberg, “Because clearly the current procedures are inadequate.” She delivered her remarks in an email to members that she was blocked from delivering at the management-called webinar on Feb. 12.

Parham was hit with a 17 count indictment for the sexual assault.

”This brutal, broad daylight attack horrified this community and the entire borough,” said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. “As alleged Germaine Paham raped a young girl who was just trying to return home. My thoughts are with her as she recovers from this heinous violent act.”

In the sexual assault, he was charged with dragging the victim at knifepoint into a stairwell off the mezzanine level of a building on the First Ave loop Rd off of First Ave and 18th St. and ordered her to remove her pants and bashed her head into a railing before sodomizing her, and subjecting her to vaginal and oral assault.

The ten-minute assault was only interrupted when another resident of the building entered the stairway. Parham then allegedly stole the victim’s cell phone before fleeing the building. He was at large for two days before police were able to match the suspect to a mug shot of Parham and distributed it via its Crime Stoppers X account.

And it appears a second woman only narrowly avoided becoming the victim. The assailant had first followed another woman into an elevator at 276 First Ave. but got off after riding only one floor because he encountered another person in the elevator, prosecutors said.

The attorney for Parham, Mariah Martinez could not be reached at press time.

The non-doorman building has key card access. The alleged assailant was said to have “piggybacked” into the building after the teen opened the door.

Management’s initial response released some two hours after the attack only went out to residents of the building where the attack took place and said as a result of “police activity” in the building, one of the entrances was closed. No mention was made of the vicious sexual attack or that the assailant was still at large.

It would be two days before management acknowledged that a “serious crime” had taken place, but there was still no disclosure that it was a rape or sexual assault or that the alleged assailant at that time was still at large. The Tenants Association was the first to send an email blast about a “sexual assault in Stuyvesant Town.”

A zoom meeting with residents headed by Beam Living CEO Yulia Yutsis included the complex’s chief of public safety Francis Martin and the commanding officer of the 13th Pct. Alexander Brathwaite on Feb. 12.

Management required callers to submit questions in writing in advance. In recent days, it has stationed security guards at the entranceways to the Loop Roads leading into the complex, but many residents continue to have security concerns.

The Tenants Association is calling for sweeping overhaul of safety measures. “Part of the overhaul should include a review of communications,” Steinberg said in the note to residents. “Keeping us safe should entail letting residents know when there is an incident that merits increased caution and awareness but also providing information to law enforcement.”

Local elected officials including newly elected Assembly member Keith Powers and NYS Senator Kirsti Gonzalez have said they will attend and invites have been extended to Manhattan borough president Brad Hoylman-Sigal and City Council member Virginia Maloney.

An email blast from the association read: “Many of us submitted questions and comments to Beam Living for their webinar, but maybe yours wasn’t answered or not to your satisfaction.”

Powers told Our Town, “The recent attack on a resident in Stuyvesant Town was a horrifying incident that requires community leaders at all levels to redouble our efforts to keep this community safe.

“I have met with management to discuss the concerns of the residents and ways to improve public safety,” Powers continued. “In the coming weeks we’re going to make sure that we can get answers to critical questions and address resident concerns.”