The Manhattan woman viciously raped by a pizza-delivery boy as her young daughter lay in bed next to her is filing suit Thursday against her alleged attacker, along with 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 and her daughter’s Manhattan Supreme Court suit, which seeks an unspecified amount 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 about 12:30 a.m. Sept. 29 to deliver a pizza to another resident, cops said. Lucas then allegedly tried several doorknobs and found the woman’s door unlocked.
He went inside and raped her while her daughter slept in the same bed — before fleeing with her iPhone and $20 stole from her daughter’s wallet, authorities said.
Lucas, who lives in the Bronx, was busted hours later — and told cops he had been “feeling horny.”
Lucas, who is being held without bail, had been arrested a month earlier for stealing another woman’s wallet after going into her apartment after delivering a pizza to her neighbor.
The victim yesterday said, “I am trying to cope with this situation, but it is just so hard.
“I cry constantly. I am having flashbacks. I am already getting counseling, but how do you ever move past something like this?” she said. “Knowing that my daughter has been impacted as well just makes things so much worse.”
Referring to her building and Halstead, she said, “They 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, the doorman on duty at the time of the rape, was suspended without pay afterward, said, “Clearly, management of the building is trying to make Rodriguez the scapegoat.
“But the problems here 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.
“How can building management even begin to argue that the supervision and security which they provided was anything other than deficient?” Albert asked. “Clearly, they did not have adequate protocols in place for deliveries being made in the building and it is beyond comprehension that this delivery boy was let into the building and forgotten about for more than 25 minutes.”
Halstead executives did not return requests for comment. A doorman at the woman’s building 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
dan.mangan@nypost.com