The man police hunted for savagely beating a nurse in a Hell’s Kitchen bar bathroom after she dissed him on the dance floor has been charged.
Chief police spokesman Paul Browne says 30-year-old Mbarek Lafrem, of Norwood, Pa., was charged with assault and attempted rape. A phone number listed for him in Norwood was disconnected.
Browne says Lafrem was working at a midtown construction site and was staying at a hotel near the bar. He says Lafrem’s co-workers contacted authorities after they saw him in a video released by police.
The victim, a 29-year-old pediatric nurse at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, suffered fractures to her nose, eye socket and skull and required 50 stitches to her face in the vicious assault at the pub early Thursday morning.
Lafrem admitted he had tried to cut in while the woman was dancing with another man but she rebuffed him. He said he was drunk and angry, and when she went to the bathroom, he followed her in and brutally beat her, the sources said.
She was found lying unconscious with her pants down.
Although a rape kit came back negative, police are treating it as an attempted sexual assault.
Police had put out video footage of Lafrem walking out of the bar at 2:17 a.m. and shaking his hand as if he had injured it. He was also captured on video at a nearby store minutes later.
The victim, who underwent surgery at Weill Cornell Medical Center was recovering with her family yesterday.
“[The family] wishes to express their sincere gratitude for the outpouring of support they have received,” the hospital said in a statement.
With AP