Suspect In Sexual Assault, Robbery Of Harlem Tourist Arrested, Police Say

HARLEM, NY — Keon Robinson, the suspect in a brutal sexual assault and robbery of a tourist walking through Harlem, was arrested Thursday, NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said.

Robinson, 28, was caught by Joint Regional Fugitive Task Force officers at 9 a.m. in Schenectady, New York, an NYPD spokesman told Patch. He will be brought to the Harlem Special Victims Unit, and no charges have been announced, the spokesman said.

Robinson attacked a 31-year-old woman from Germany on Thursday, May 4 as she was walking to her Harlem Airbnb, police told Patch. The tourist was walking on West 146th Street between Frederick Douglass and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. boulevards, when she was approached by Robinson, police said. The man grabbed the tourist from behind and tried to snatch her purse, police said.

The woman tried to fight the man off and refused to let go of her purse as her attacker punched her in the face, according to surveillance video distributed Friday by police.

The video shows the man knocking the woman to the ground and repeatedly punching her. During the attack, the man sexually assaulted the tourist, police said.

The brutal attack is one of three robberies Robinson has been tied to, police told Patch. Robinson is also the suspect of an April 24 robbery of a 35-year-old woman on Bradhurst Avenue near West 148th Street and the April 28 mugging of a 24-year-old man on West 139th Street near Lenox Avenue, NYPD Chief of Detectives Boyce said.

During the robbery of the 35-year-old woman Robinson told the victim, "this could be easy, I have a gun just give me your bag," Boyce said. When the woman began screaming, Robinson punched her several times, Boyce said.

Robinson, a registered sex offender, was living in the Brevoort Houses complex in Bed-Stuy, according to the New York State Sex Offender Registry. Robinson was sentenced to 7 years in prison for a 2006 first-degree sexual abuse conviction, according to the sex offender registry.

In July 2014, Robinson got out of prison, Boyce said. Robinson did another 6 months behind bars after violating his parole in the summer of 2016 and was released in January, Boyce told reporters.

This article will be updated.

Photo by NYPD