NYC migrants — including one charged in sex assault 4 months ago — raped woman at knifepoint, beat her boyfriend: sources
Two migrants were arrested for a knifepoint rape in Coney Island — including one who was released from jail less than two months ago after sexually assaulting a different woman at a city-funded shelter, authorities said Monday.
Daniel Davon-Bonilla, 24, of Nicaragua, allegedly grabbed a 46-year-old woman and threw her to the ground before raping her while holding a knife to her throat Sunday around 8:45 a.m. under the Riegelmann Boardwalk, cops and the sources said.
His alleged accomplice, identified as Mexican migrant Leovando Moreno, 37, is accused of striking the woman’s 34-year-old boyfriend with a pipe when he tried to stop the vicious assault, the sources said.
It wasn’t the first sex crime bust for Davon-Bonilla, who is believed to have crossed the US border illegally in Texas in December 2022.
Four months later, he was arrested for allegedly raping a woman at a La Quinta Hotel on Third Avenue in Gowanus that was turned into a migrant shelter.
He spent about a year behind bars before taking a plea deal that put him back on the streets in June, according to corrections officials and Brooklyn prosecutors.
The horrific Sunday attack took place near Surf Avenue and West 16th Street. A poorly lit walkway leads to a space under the boardwalk there that locals said vagrants camp out in and which was littered with drug paraphernalia and cans of White Claw Monday.
Sources said the victim, who told cops she had been living under the boardwalk with her boyfriend for two weeks, was approached by Davon-Bonilla while she was alone.
He offered her trinkets in exchange for sex, and when she refused, he attacked her, choking her and holding her down while he raped her, the sources said.
The woman’s boyfriend arrived during the assault and scuffled with Davon-Bonilla, but was then blindsided from behind by Moreno, according to sources.
Davon-Bonilla was charged with first-degree rape, second-degree assault, first-degree sexual abuse, menacing and criminal possession of a weapon, the sources said.
He pleaded not guilty to the charges during a late-night arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court late Monday. He was held without bail and is scheduled to return to court on Friday.
US Department of Homeland Security sources said Davon-Bonilla entered the country illegally through Eagle Pass, Texas, on Dec. 7, 2022, and was found by border agents sneaking through the thick brush.
He was taken into Border Patrol custody and told agents at the time that he was going to live in Miami, giving them the address of a homeless shelter.
Davon-Bonilla appears to have eventually moved to New York City, with sources saying he lived at the La Quinta — where he was accused of raping a 34-year-old woman on April 3, 2023, pulling her hair and holding her down as he attacked her, according to a criminal complaint.
He was charged with criminal sexual act, unlawful imprisonment as a hate crime, sexual misconduct and sexual abuse, according to a criminal complaint.
The Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office said it struck a deal with Davon-Bonilla that granted him credit for time served behind bars in exchange for a guilty plea to assault in the second degree as the victim did not want to testify.
City Department of Correction officials said Davon-Bonilla was locked up on Rikers Island from April 4, 2023, until June 24 — putting him back on the streets less than two months before Sunday’s rape.
“After he spent over a year in jail and following the victim’s request not to testify in any court proceedings, this defendant was offered a plea of time served and court-managed programming,” a spokesman for Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez said Monday.
Davon-Bonilla — who has no known address — now faces up to seven years in the earlier case for violating the terms of the deal, the rep said.
It was not clear why Davon-Bonilla was allowed to remain in the US after he was released from jail in June.
US immigration officials did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
Sources laid the blame on New York’s sanctuary policies, saying they hamper US Immigration and Customs Enforcement from deporting dangerous criminals.
Sanctuary cities and states typically refuse to hold illegal migrants charged with crimes for federal immigration authorities to take them into custody and start deportation proceedings.
“When sanctuary cities and states don’t share immigration information or work well with ICE, ICE never gets an opportunity to actually do their job and remove subjects with criminal history while being here illegally,” one DHS source said.
Another DHS source pointed to the Biden administration’s limiting “priorities” for immigration enforcement and “sanctuary cities not cooperating with ICE” as the reason for this latest crime.
“I have child molesters that I can’t arrest because they’re not a priority,” said the source.
Moreno, who is homeless, was arraigned on charges of second-degree assault and criminal possession of a weapon for the Sunday attack at Brooklyn criminal court Monday night. He pleaded not guilty and was held on $20,000 cash bail.
His lawyer claimed he didn’t know Davon-Bonilla. He said he heard the woman’s screams, ran over and saw Davon-Bonilla and the rape victim’s boyfriend fighting and tried to break up the fight with the pipe he allegedly swung.
“We expect to do a thorough investigation,” his attorney Jay Schwitzman told reporters outside the courtroom.
“But he didn’t assist in any kind of sexual assault. There was a fight between two people and he went to break up the fight. He didn’t know what was going on … he heard screams, he broke them up.”
Moreno is due back in court on Friday as well.
It is not clear when Moreno entered the country. Sources said he was being sought on a warrant for public lewdness in Seaside Heights, New Jersey, stemming from an Aug. 16, 2022, incident.
The victim in Sunday’s attack was taken to Coney Island Hospital, where she was listed in stable condition. Her boyfriend refused medical attention at the scene, sources said.
“It’s really sketchy,” a Parks Department worker said about that area of the boardwalk. “You do not want to walk down that alley at night. Hell no.”
The area is popular with vagrants because there are two public bathrooms conveniently nearby, the employee said.
“There’s not a lot of spots to get underneath that boardwalk, but any single one that’s opened up, they get in there,” he said. “If they get under there, they’re living under there.”
The Coney Island boardwalk is one of several spots across the Big Apple where migrants who have flooded into the five boroughs in recent years have set up shop.
Many, including those booted from city-funded shelters, have joined the ranks of Gotham’s homeless.
“It smells like pee and there are homeless men smoking drugs,” said mom Nicole Sideova, who was pushing her 11-month-old daughter in a stroller along the boardwalk on Monday afternoon.
“Dangerous people,” she said. “It’s like a trap. Once you start walking down there there’s no way to escape.”
Additional reporting by Kevin Sheehan, Amanda Woods, Desheania Andrews and Allie Griffin
