A Sunnyside man was arrested for allegedly raping an 18-year-old woman in Flushing Meadows Corona Park during the morning of Friday, Nov. 8. Photo via Getty Images
Nov. 13, 2024 By Bill Parry
A Sunnyside man is accused of raping a young woman in Flushing Meadows Corona Park during the early morning hours of Friday, Nov. 8.
Police from the 110th Precinct in Elmhurst responded to a 911 call of an assault inside the park at 4:45 a.m.
Officers found an 18-year-old woman who told them she was sexually assaulted inside a vehicle by a man she knew and then dropped off at the park, police said Monday.
EMS responded to the location and transported the woman to New York-Presbyterian Queens Hospital, where she was listed in stable condition.
Detectives from the NYPD Special Victims Unit took over the investigation and interviewed the victim at the hospital. She told investigators that she got into a black sedan with three men she had met the day before and was driven to Flushing Meadows Corona Park near exit 22A of the Long Island Expressway near the Grand Central Parkway, where she was allegedly raped by one of the men before they drove away.
Hours later, the SUV detectives arrested Luis Fernando Galarza-Zaruma, 25, of 41st Street in Sunnyside. He was booked at the 108th Precinct in Long Island City just after 7 p.m., where he was charged with two counts of rape in the first degree. The investigation remains ongoing, and police are searching for the two other men involved in the attack who remain at large.
Anyone with information regarding this investigation is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at crimestoppers.nypdonline.org or on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) @NYPDTips. All calls and messages are kept confidential.
Through Nov. 10, the 110th Precinct has reported 37 rapes so far in 2024, four more than the 33 reported at the same point last year, an increase of 12.1%, according to the most recent CompStat report.
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