IN CUSTODY:Jason Quiñones is escorted yesterday to his arraignment, where his mom and wife (above, right) insisted he “is not a rapist.” (NY Post: G.N. Miller)
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Accused of a twisted crime, he’s using a twisted defense.
Jason Quinones, a parolee charged with raping a woman after breaking into her Upper East Side apartment, admits that they had sex but claims it was consensual.
Prosecutors say Quinones, 21, broke into the East 90th Street ground-floor apartment between 4:30 and 5 a.m. last Thursday, found the 27-year-old woman asleep, attacked her and then fled when she ran — screaming and nearly naked — into the hallway, where neighbors rushed to her aid.
Quinones, on parole from a drug case, was arrested Sunday after investigators found his fingerprints on the window and guard lock.
Plus, he was picked out of a lineup by the woman and incriminated himself under questioning, investigators said.
That, however, is also when he presented his hard-to-believe alibi.
“The defendant made a series of statements that he went through the window of the apartment and took the victim’s phone, so she’d be unable to call the police, and had sex with the victim — although he disturbingly claims it was consensual,” Assistant District Attorney Samuel David said in Manhattan Criminal Court yesterday.
Defense lawyer Alix Duroseau Jr. tried to draw similarities between his client’s case and that of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, questioning the woman’s credibility.
He cited “the fact that there was no evidence of any injuries’ having been sustained, no scratches, no bruises and so on, which typically tends to be very significant in connection with instances where there are allegations of rape.”
But Judge James Burke, seemingly unimpressed with that argument, ordered Quinones held without bail pending a court hearing set for Friday.
The suspect’s mother was among a group of relatives in court to support him.
“My son is innocent,” Lisa Quinones insisted. “My son is not a rapist . . . This is a big misunderstanding.”
His sister, Jasmine Santiago, called Quinones “a good workingman” and “a good father” to his 3-year-old son.
Prosecutors, on the other hand, noted that this was his fifth arrest and that he was on parole for dealing drugs when he was apprehended.