Scooter-riding suspect wanted for raping unconscious stranger on Queens street once murdered man for shooting him
An on-the-loose suspect police say knocked a woman unconscious and then raped her on a desolate Queens street has been identified as a three-time ex-con who once did time for murdering a man who had just shot him on a subway train.
Tony Kempsey, 58 and homeless, was identified Wednesday as the suspect wanted for the April 30 rape of a 49-year-old woman on 48th Ave. near 72nd St. in Elmhurst.
NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig said the victim had minutes earlier left a house party three blocks away to get some air, at which point Kempsey rode up on a scooter and started talking to her about 5 a.m.
She got on the scooter and the attacker drove them to a block Essig described as “desolate,” then attacked her.
“The rape was caught on video, and it’s pretty brutal,” Essig said. “Knocks her to the ground. Knocks her out. She sustained bleeding on her brain. She went through a very traumatic experience. She remembers walking in the rain, clearing her head. It was a traumatic incident, so she doesn’t recall a lot.”
The victim was rushed to Elmhurst Medical Center and is recovering.
The rapist drove off and police couldn’t track him on video after that. But Essig said they found video of him from before the rape and eventually found him entering a building in Lefrak City to visit someone he knows.
He took his helmet off at some point, with a camera capturing his face, an image that allowed police to identify him.
Essig said Kempsey has 10 prior arrests, most recently for a 2017 slashing in which he wounded someone while impersonating a cop.
Records show he did three terms in state prison, most notably 20 years for a 1992 Queens murder at the Roosevelt Ave. subway station.
Kempsey fatally struck Amaury Rodriguez, 20, in the head with a martial arts weapon called a kama, which looks like a sickle with a short handle. Kempsey killed Rodriguez as an NYPD detective was holding Rodriguez at gunpoint for shooting and wounding Kempsey on an E train moments earlier, according to a Daily News story.
Kempsey was convicted a year later, but it was overturned on a technicality. He was later retried and convicted a second time.
Kempsey was earlier paroled in March 1990 after serving a year for stolen property possession, records show. Before that, he was conditionally released by parole after serving 2½ years for burglary.
Cops released photos of Kempsey Wednesday and asked the public’s help tracking him down. Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
