Bouncer Charged in 2nd N.Y. Assault
NEW YORK — A bar bouncer already charged in the death of graduate student Imette St. Guillen was accused Thursday of abducting a female York College student while he posed as a law enforcement officer.
“This case is outrageous in its audacity,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said of Darryl Littlejohn’s alleged actions in the kidnapping and assault that occurred Oct. 19 in Queens as the woman was walking home from class.
As in the St. Guillen slaying, authorities said they had DNA evidence linking Littlejohn, 41, to the crime, taken from handcuffs that were used to bind the woman’s hands.
Kelly and Queens Dist. Atty. Richard Brown said the student, who was then 19 and was not identified, showed incredible fortitude in escaping.
Though her hands were cuffed behind her and she had been forced into a van and punched, she forced open a door of the moving vehicle and leapt out, hitting the pavement hard, the officials said. The van sped off when children playing in the neighborhood came to her aid.
“You can just imagine the fear that this young woman experienced, walking home from school on an October afternoon,” Kelly said. “But her reaction was even more impressive. She showed great courage.”
Littlejohn, of Queens, was arraigned Thursday in state Supreme Court on charges of kidnapping, assault, robbery and criminal impersonation in the attack.
He pleaded not guilty. Last month in a Manhattan courtroom, Littlejohn pleaded not guilty to murder and rape charges in the Feb. 25 strangulation of St. Guillen. He is being held without bail.
St. Guillen, 24, a Boston native enrolled in graduate school at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan, was last seen alive at a SoHo bar where Littlejohn was working. Her body, with her head wrapped in plastic tape and her hands bound, was found in a marshy area in Brooklyn.
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