Man accused of East Hartford gunpoint rape has a different version

Alex Wood, Journal Inquirer, Manchester, Conn.
Updated ·4 min read
11

Feb. 21—EAST HARTFORD — The man who is accused of raping a woman at gunpoint and beating her in East Hartford in mid-January admitted to police that events roughly resembling those described by the woman occurred — but said they grew out of a payment dispute with a prostitute.

RAPE CHARGE

DEFENDANT: Moo N. Ta, 24, of Hartford

CHARGES: Aggravated first-degree sexual assault, second-degree assault, brandishing a facsimile firearm

STATUS: Held on $500,000 bond

That information comes from an affidavit by East Hartford police Detective Paul J. Sulzicki in the case against Moo N. Ta, 24, of Hartford, who is charged with aggravated first-degree sexual assault, second-degree assault, and brandishing a facsimile firearm.

Tuesday in Manchester Superior Court, Judge Sheila M. Prats reduced Ta's bond from $750,000 to $500,000. He remained in custody today, according to the state Department of Correction website.

The woman reported the incident to East Hartford police at 11:53 p.m. Jan. 15 from the Holiday Inn on East River Drive, Sulzicki reported.

The detective said she was bleeding from a 2-inch cut on her forehead and was taken to Hartford Hospital. She told police that she had been trying to "make some money" on Wethersfield Avenue in Hartford when a Hispanic or Asian man in a red four-door sedan approached her. She said she got in his car to discuss the price of "services."

He drove her to East Hartford and stopped on East River Drive. She said he then raped her at gunpoint and beat her all over her body with a baton.

She described the attacker as short. Ta is 5-foot-1, according to an arrest report.

Just over a month later, at 3:53 a.m. Feb. 16, East Hartford police received a report of two women screaming and crying on East River Drive. They told officers that an orange sedan they described as a Charger began to follow them in Hartford, and they got in with a short Asian man, who drove them to East River Drive.

They said he got out of the car, walked to the passenger side, and ordered them out at gunpoint, saying, "I'm a cop. I'm a cop."

One of them described his gun as having a light attachment.

East Hartford police enlisted Hartford police to use their license-plate readers to locate a red or burgundy car. One was located heading north on Columbus Boulevard, then turning toward East Hartford at 3:30 a.m. Feb. 16 — consistent with the time of the incident.

Sulzicki and a fellow officer found the car at Ta's Hartford address, where he approached them and said he had been its sole driver for the last three months. When asked about having two women in the car, he said they had tried to rob him.

In a subsequent interview at the East Hartford police station, he said his wife had left him for a new boyfriend and, in the Jan. 15 incident, he picked up a prostitute on Park Street in Hartford to get "revenge." He said she agreed to have sex with him. But when he reached the area of the East Hartford boat launch, he said, his conscience didn't permit him to have sex.

He said he told the prostitute to get out of the car, but she refused because he wouldn't pay her. At that point, he said, he got a stick from the trunk, hit her with it, and she punched him in the jaw.

He said at first that he had a paintball gun with a laser sight in the trunk, which the woman could see. But he later admitted having produced it during his interaction with her, Sulzicki reported.

Ta has not been charged in the Feb. 16 incident.

He has lived in Connecticut for 15 years and had been working for six months for the same company as a machinist, public defender Mark Holmes said in court.

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