The 27-year-old homeless man accused of overpowering and raping a 12-year-old girl in her Brooklyn apartment building as he threatened to “violate” her had been arrested for another rape six years earlier and was awaiting sentencing when he targeted his young victim, the Daily News has learned.
Years before his sick attack in NYCHA’s Cooper Park Houses on Thursday, Eric McMichael was arrested for raping a woman he knew inside his victim’s Staten Island home, officials said.
He was accused of forcing his way into her home on Sept. 8, 2019, attacking the woman, then swiping her cellphone before running off. Cops arrested him that October, about six weeks after the attack, the Staten Island Advance reported at the time.
As part of a plea deal hammered out in 2021, McMichael pleaded guilty to first-degree sexual abuse and second-degree burglary with the understanding that he would be sentenced to five years’ probation if he finished a mental health program ordered by the presiding judge.
He never finished the program, officials said.
In 2023, cops arrested McMichael for carjacking a livery cab driver in downtown Brooklyn. He pleaded guilty and was expected to be sentenced to three years in prison for the carjacking and the 2019 rape, but his sentencing was adjourned on July 16 and rescheduled for this coming Thursday in Richmond County Criminal Court, according to court documents.
He was freed without bail ever since he pleaded guilty to the rape in 2021, according to court records.
On Thursday, McMichael, who is homeless but living in a shelter in Greenpoint, crept into the NYCHA building on Morgan and Skillman Aves. in East Williamsburg at around 5:45 p.m. and attacked his 12-year-old victim as she passed him on a stairwell.
“I’m going to violate you,” McMichael seethed as he threw the girl to the ground and attacked her, cops said.
He didn’t know the girl, who lived in the building and was on her way to a nearby store, according to police.
“My daughter will never be the same,” the victim’s mother told The News in an exclusive interview Friday. “My daughter is a dancer. She sings. She does hair. She’s only in the seventh grade.”
EMS rushed the child to an area hospital for treatment. Detectives assigned to the NYPD’s Special Victims Unit found some surveillance footage of McMichael in the area and distributed his image, hoping someone would recognize him.
Another resident of the shelter where McMichael was staying, about two miles away from the attack, recognized the suspect and left a tip with NYPD Crime Stoppers, cops said.
NYPD
Police released a photo of the suspect they say raped a 12-year-old girl inside an East Williamsburg apartment building on Thursday night. (NYPD)
Detectives charged McMichael with rape, sex abuse, burglary and child endangerment. His arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court was pending Saturday.
“She’s my baby,” said the child’s mother. The News is not naming the woman to protect her and her daughter’s privacy. “I want justice.”
The NYPD has seen a 17% jump in rapes and sexual assaults across the five boroughs over the past year, officials said.
As of Sunday, detectives in the Special Victims Unit were investigating 1,720 rapes and sexual assaults, 260 more than this time last year.
Police officials said that increase is largely attributable to legislative changes made a year ago that broadened the legal definition of rape in New York State, which now includes additional forms of sexual assault.
