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The Manhattan woman viciously raped allegedly by a pizza-delivery boy as her young daughter lay in bed next to her is filing suit today against the teen suspect, his employer and the company that operates her doorman luxury condo building.
“I have a hard time understanding how a pizza delivery boy can be let upstairs after midnight and roam the halls for over 25 minutes without anyone at the building thinking that something was wrong,” the still-shaken 35-year-old victim said yesterday.
“For a company like Halstead that operates buildings all over the city, this is completely inexcusable,” she said through her lawyer, Marc Albert.
The woman’s and her daughter’s Manhattan Supreme Court suit, which seeks an unspecified sum of money, also names the West 61st Street luxury condo where they live, doorman Luis Rodriguez, New York Sal’s Pizza and its owner’s son — 16-year-old suspect Cesar Lucas.
Lucas was let into the building by Rodriguez at 12:30 a.m. on Sept. 29 to deliver a pizza to another resident. He then allegedly tried several doors and found the victim’s unlocked.
He raped her while her daughter slept in the same bed — before fleeing with her iPhone and $20 stolen from her daughter’s wallet, cops said.
Lucas, who lives in The Bronx, allegedly told arresting officers he’d been “feeling horny.”
Lucas, who is being held without bail, had been arrested a month earlier for allegedly stealing another woman’s wallet after delivering pizza to her neighbor.
The rape victim said, “I am trying to cope with this situation, but it is just so hard. I cry constantly. I’m having flashbacks.
“I am already getting counseling, but how do you ever move past something like this? Knowing that my daughter has been impacted as well just makes things so much worse.”
She noted the building “used to have two doormen manning the night shift, but recently cut that down to one to save money.”
Albert, noting that father-of-seven Rodriguez was suspended without pay afterward, said, “Management of the building is trying to make Rodriguez the scapegoat. But the problems go far beyond the doorman and it’s time for Halstead and the building to answer for this devastating incident that never should have happened.
“My client has to live the rest of her life with their mistakes.”
Halstead did not return requests for comment. A doorman said the condo association would have no comment. An employee of New York Sal’s Pizza said no one there could comment.
Additional reporting by Kaylee Osowski