Migrant charged with rape in third NYC sex crime bust of an asylum seeker in two weeks
A Senegalese national who crossed the US border illegally last year is now charged with raping a 36-year-old woman in the Bronx — one of three migrants busted for sex crimes in the Big Apple in the past two weeks.
Papa Diop, 38, was arrested Saturday and charged with rape and sexual abuse in the vicious assault that took place shortly before 2 a.m. on Aug. 5 in the South Bronx, according to authorities.
Immigration officials said Diop had been arrested by US border agents in Yuma, Arizona, in May 2023 and was released without bail because of a shortage of detention space at the overwhelmed border.
He submitted an asylum application in January and was given a work permit that expires in 2029.
Officials at US Immigration and Customs Enforcement lodged a detainer on Diop following his recent arrest.
He’s currently being held at Rikers Island on $250,000 cash bail or a $750,000 bond, the Bronx District Attorney’s Office said.
The victim told police her boyfriend went to the store, leaving her alone when her attacker first approached her at East 149th Street and Third Avenue and asked for directions, police and sources said.
The suspect left but returned about an hour later and approached the victim, whispering something in her ear that the woman — who is partially deaf in one ear — was unable to make out.
The thug then allegedly threatened to slug the woman, put his arm around her throat and pinned her down on a park bench, where he raped her.
When the victim’s boyfriend returned they called 911, and investigators scoured for surveillance footage from the area.
Cops were able to identify Diop on Saturday, when he was spotted by alert cops at a 4 train station on the Grand Concourse and East 149th Street and took him into custody.
The victim later identified Diop as her attacker, police said.
His arrest came a day before another migrant was accused of raping a homeless woman at knifepoint under the Coney Island boardwalk, while his alleged accomplice smashed her boyfriend with a pipe when he tried to intervene, according to police and prosecutors.
Daniel Davon-Bonilla, 24, who was ordered held without bail Monday night, allegedly choked the woman and held a “sharp object” to her throat under the Riegelmann Boardwalk, Brooklyn prosecutors said.
Davon-Bonilla, a Nicaraguan migrant, had already served a year in jail last year after he was charged with sodomizing another woman at a migrant hotel and was only released on June 24.
His allegedly accomplice, Mexican migrant Leovando Moreno, 37, was charged with assault for allegedly smashing the boyfriend of Sunday’s rape victim in the back with a pipe.
In a third migrant sex crime bust, 20-year-old Ousmane Balde, a native of Guinea who recently arrived in the city, was arrested on Aug. 6 and charged with fondling a 57-year-old woman in Central Park.
Balde is accused of approaching the victim on a City Bike around 1:30 am on Aug. 1 and grabbing her crotch — only fleeing after the woman repeatedly hit him, sources said.
The assailant rode off on the bike but was tracked down to a bakery on Seventh Avenue where he worked after cops reviewed surveillance video from the area.
Balde was arrested and charged with forcible touching.
