A pleasant nighttime stroll turned into a nightmare for a Manhattan woman after a predator dragged her into a West Village playground and sexually assaulted her, police sources said.
The 37-year-old said she was walking north on a foot path at West Street near 12th Street at 10:20 p.m. Sunday, when the 5-foot-8, 165- pound stranger came out of nowhere and set upon her, the sources said.
He wrapped his arms around her and forced her off the path into a grassy area, where he made her perform oral sex on him, the sources said.
During the attack, the woman, who lives on Christopher Street, fought him off — shaking her head and screaming while pushing him away.
But that only enraged the creep, who then tossed a “sticky” substance at her face from a container he was clutching, a source said.
The terrified woman fled, dashing across busy West Street to a condominium building, where the doorman called 911, according to the sources.
The assailant ran away, disappearing as he headed north along the jogging path, sources said.
The victim was taken to Beth Israel Hospital, where she refused medical treatment, the sources said.
While she was at the hospital, she was uncooperative with detectives and declined to have evidence swabbed for DNA testing, a source said.
Police sources also said that she was intoxicated.
The alleged attack comes on the heels of a sexual-assault spree in Forest Park, Queens, that made headlines last month when the NYPD released a sketch of the suspected fiend.
The suspect, who was armed with a stun gun, is still being sought in connection with six sexual attacks around Forest Park over a 2¹/₂-year period span beginning in 2010.
There was almost a one-year gap between two of the attacks, from 2011 to 2012 — and some investigators believe that the man was also targeting victims in other states.
“We’re considering it may be a pattern with cases from other states or cities,” said one law-enforcement source at the time, adding that the suspect could have also been locked away in jail over that period.
The NYPD’s latest statistics show that reported rapes are down 0.2 percent for the year — compared with the same period last year.
Last year, there were three more felony sexual assaults, or 1,206 complaints, during the same period.
But rape complaints are up 4.2 percent when compared to numbers from two years ago in the five boroughs.
Additional reporting by Kirstan Conley