A brutal serial rapist is stalking women outside the celeb-studded downtown nightclub The Box – kidnapping and attacking at least two victims in less than a month, cops said yesterday.
The brazen sicko apparently first struck Sept. 30 at 3 a.m., abducting a 25-year-old drunken patron standing in front of the ultra-hip venue at 189 Chrystie St. on the Lower East Side, police said.
Grabbing his victim from behind, the creep forced the woman into his vehicle and made her drink an unknown liquid, cops said. She later described the car to cops as a white SUV, but bystanders said it was black.
The fiend drove his victim over a bridge, possibly the Williamsburg, and raped and sodomized her in the vehicle.
He then forced her to withdraw $500 from a bank ATM on Metropolitan Avenue in Forest Hills, Queens, and dumped her on the street.
The rapist struck again Friday at the same time, 3 a.m., in front of the trendy, racy club, whose decadent burlesque and cabaret acts have featured stars such as Gina Gershon and drawn customers ranging from flamboyant transvestites with sidekick dwarves to celebs Lindsay Lohan, Cameron Diaz and Rose McGowan.
This time, the victim, 23, was trying to hail a taxi when the suspect pulled up in a black sedan and led her to believe he was a livery driver, police said.
The drunken patron got in, and he drove again over a bridge, likely the Williamsburg, authorities said. At some point, the fiend blindfolded the woman, cops said.
The thug pulled into an alley in Brooklyn and jumped into the back seat, where he raped her, police said.
He then demanded the woman’s ATM card and cellphone before driving her back into Manhattan, where he forced her out at Ludlow and Stanton streets, just blocks from The Box.
Detectives are poring over grainy video footage that they say shows the man through the revolving doors at the Forest Hills bank in the first attack.
Both victims were white and at the club alone, cops said. The suspect was described as white, taller than 5-foot-8, weighing up to 200 pounds and between 25 and 40 years old.
Liz Ruben, an event planner who works near the club, said last night, “It’s really scary to know there’s a crazy predator out there.
“This is like something you’d see in a horror movie.”
Ruben called the Box “one of the hottest places in the city.”
“They get A-list celebrities,” she said. “The club is great. I love it.”
The Box rep Nadine Johnson said in a statement, “The owners and management of the Box are appalled and distressed by these two events. We are doing everything we possibly can to help the police . . . to apprehend the perpetrator.”
Additional reporting by Kate Sheehy, Tatiana Deligiannakis and Larry Celona