(The following story by Timothy Robertson appeared on the Newsday website on July 3.)
NEW YORK — A Long Island Rail Road conductor, alerted by passengers to cries for help near the tracks, stopped the sexual assault of a woman in broad daylight at the Freeport station, railroad officials said.
Assistant conductor Eugene Chino said a female passenger told him she heard a child crying near the east end of the platform when the train was stopped at 4:11 p.m. Tuesday in Freeport. Chino, 42, went down to track level to try to find the child. Instead, he said, he saw a woman who was screaming “Help me! Help me! Stop!” as a man assaulted her just a few feet from the electrified third rail.
“It was shocking, scary, frightening and something that’s unacceptable,” Chino said at an MTA news conference yesterday.
Chino said he told the attacker to stop, and the man turned to him and seemed confused.
“He was in shock. He looked at me like he was in another area of his thought process,” said Chino, who has worked for the railroad for six years.
Chino alerted MTA police, who nabbed the alleged assailant, David Thornton, 48, of Island Park. Thornton, represented by a Legal Aid attorney, pleaded not guilty yesterday to first-degree rape charges in First District Court in Hempstead.
He was held on $500,000 cash bail or $250,000 bond.
The 28-year-old woman, whose identity was not disclosed, had bruises to her neck, back and shoulder. Thornton allegedly assaulted her on the rocks in between the two sets of tracks shielded by the cement housing of the platform staircase, officials said.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority police said the attack happened around 4:15 p.m. near the edge of the platform closer to the eastbound tracks, shielded from riders’ view. Police said they didn’t know how Thornton lured the victim to the tracks but said she had a commuter pass.
MTA officers Kevin Smith and Michelle Russo were at the station responding to a call about a suspicious package when Chino told them of the attack. Smith said the victim suffered anxiety and seemed shaken up.
“She hugged me. She wouldn’t let go,” Smith said yesterday. The victim was taken to Nassau University Medical Center, police said.
The victim didn’t know Thornton and he didn’t use a weapon in the assault, according to police.
Newly issued crew cell phones kept the lines of communication open between Chino and fellow crew members, including collector Loraine Martinez and engineer Brian Zaderecki. Chino told Martinez about the situation, and she called Zaderecki and told him to hold the train at the station.
LIRR officials gave 1,000 cell phones to crew members six months ago, and they played a key role in foiling Tuesday’s attack, said Raymond Kenny, LIRR’s vice president of operations.