Four years ago, a 19-year-old college student was raped by a boxcutter-wielding fiend, a stranger who had stalked her by subway and pushed his way into her SoHo building.
Yesterday, she bravely recounted the attack to a Manhattan jury in hopes of winning a conviction against the man whose DNA matches that left in the assault.
“Shhhhhh,” he kept telling her as he held the blade to her throat, she testified.
Eventually, “I just shut off,” the woman, who now lives in Germany, said tearfully, recalling the attack on the concrete floor of her Prince Street building’s courtyard.
“I kind of went somewhere else.
“I honestly couldn’t — my mind turned off or went somewhere else,” she said.
Andres Suarez, 30, was linked to the crime when his DNA — which had been added to the state database after a recent assault arrest — allegedly matched DNA left at the scene.
Suarez is charged with predatory sex assault, rape and burglary.
He kept his eyes glued on the woman as she testified against him.