Metro

Broadway ‘Beauty’ bests ‘Beast’ in sentencing of Hells Kitchen home invasion rapist

It’s a real-life Broadway Beauty-versus-Beast story, and after surviving an unimaginable assault and tremendous evidentiary odds, the beauty has won.

Repeat sex offender Henry Gaston — who shares his surname with the fictional “Beast” — was sentenced to 20 years in prison today for the chilling, home invasion rape of a young and pretty Broadway hair stylist from Hells Kitchen.

“He is an absolute beast, no question,” one law enforcement source said of Gaston prior to today’s emotional sentencing, at which the woman tearfully called her attacker a coward and a liar. “And she is a beauty for coming forward against him.”

Sex crimes sleuths won the case against Gaston, 50 — an Army and National Guard veteran from Hempstead, LI — despite the victim’s utter lack of a memory of being raped.

A female friend had helped her home and tucked her into bed in July 2010 after a night of drinking — but the friend left the victim’s front door unlocked.

The victim woke up from a deep sleep to find herself half undressed, and feeling — but not remembering — that she’d been raped. Her cell phone and credit cards were missing and her sheets were stained.

On just those clues — and an unwavering belief in their victim’s truthfulness — investigators tracked Gaston down in just two weeks. It turns out he had used his victim’s bank card to buy an LIRR train ticket home in Penn Station — and the automated kiosk had a surveillance camera.

On a long-shot, NYPD’s Manhattan Special Victims Squad sent the surveillance photo to every police department along the Hempstead line — striking pay dirt when Det. Shawn Hamilton, who handled sex offender monitoring for Hempstead police, called back, pointing them to Gaston. DNA testing of the stain eventually clinched the case.

The pervert had been on the sex offender registry since a violent attempted sex attack in Manhattan in 1998. From 2002 to 2005, he had a sexual relationship with his 14-year-old step daughter in Queens, paying her in money and marijuana for sex, lead prosecutor Jeffrey Levinson said in court today. The poor girl was left so damaged, prosecutors had let Gaston plead to endangering the welfare of a child rather than put her on the stand. More recently, Gaston has been busted as a male prostitute, Levinson added.

“If you had a daughter, what would you want for her?” the victim tearfully asked Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Bruce Allen today, in urging him to sentence Gaston severely.

“What would you do for her, if she asked you, Dad, help me. Dad, help me be safe. Dad, I hurt. Dad, make sure this will never happen again.

“If the sentence you give isn’t good enough for your own daughter, it isn’t good enough for me.”

At trial last month, Gaston had taken the stand and described himself as a male prostitute, telling a twisty, contradictory tale of the victim having invited him into her apartment to “party.” Today, the judge told Gaston his story was so absurd, it was as if he had raped her again from the witness stand.

“I think I speak for everyone who hear you testify,” the judge told the victim. “Our hearts and prayers go out to you.”