Man accused in livery cab sex assaults

  Eyewitness News

NEW YORK (WABC) -- A Brooklyn man is charged with the rape and attempted rape of two women in Chelsea.

Police say 28-year-old Torkieh Sadagheh was taken into custody for attacking two women he picked up while posing as a livery car driver yesterday morning.

Sadagheh allegedly picked up his first victim at 4:20 a.m. Sunday at the intersection of West 28th Street and 10th Avenue.

Authorities say he was posing as a livery driver, picked up a Scores dancer and was supposed to take her to West 86th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.

"I was scared, because as soon as he jumped back, he was strangling me," the victim, Monica Maniero, said Monday. "So I already knew that he wanted to hurt me."

Next, he's accused of picking up four women at the same Chelsea intersection at 4:50 a.m.

Authorities say three of the women got out to go to a diner, and he was supposed to take the remaining one home to East 31st Street.

Instead, police say he attacked her, sodomizing the woman in the back seat of the car.

She was taken to Bellevue Hospital for treatment.

She was also able to get the license plate of his vehicle, which not a livery cab license.

Using the plate, detectives picked up Sadagheh at his home last night.

During questioning, the suspect allegedly admitted to one of the attacks, but not the other.

He had initially been suspected in the abduction, robbery and rape of two women he picked up leaving The Box, a club at 189 Chrystie Street, last year. Those rapes, on separate occasions in September and October, happeend under similar circumstance, but investigators no longer believe they are related to the incidents Sunday.

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