Accused Rapist Ordered to Stand Trial in Abduction
Joseph A. Slobodzian, Inquirer Staff Writer
A Hunting Park man was held for trial Thursday on charges of trying to abduct one woman, and abducting and raping another, an hour apart just before dawn May 1.
Manuel Cintron, 24, was identified in court by both alleged victims during a preliminary hearing before Philadelphia Municipal Court Judge Karen Y. Simmons.
The first attack occurred about 4:20 a.m., a 30-year-old woman testified, as she walked to a bus stop to get to work by 5 a.m.
Questioned by Assistant District Attorney Jessalyn Gillum, the woman said she was in the 1100 block of Ruscomb Street in Logan when the man she identified as Cintron accosted her, cocked a pistol, and said, "Don't do anything stupid or I'll shoot you in the head."
The woman said the assailant grabbed her by an arm, walked her to a blue van, and "tried to push me in the van. I just freaked out, and I ran."
The woman said she spotted a bus, jumped on, then told her boss about the attack when she got to work and called police.
The second woman, 22, said she was walking to work in the 2000 block of East York Street in Kensington at 5:30 a.m. when a man she said was Cintron confronted her with a gun and told her, "Do what I say, and nothing bad will happen."
The woman said he grabbed her by the arm and forced her into a blue van, then drove around several blocks until she lost track of where she was. The woman wept as she said he forced her to undress in the rear of the van and then raped her.
The woman said her assailant dropped her off at Almond and Boston Streets, but not before he photographed her identification card and address with his cellphone and warned her that his brother would "do something about it" if she reported the rape to police.
In questioning the women, defense attorney Perry de Marco Sr. focused mostly on the gun the women said they were threatened with, eliciting acknowledgment that they could not tell if it was real or a replica.
A final prosecution witness was Police Detective James Owens, who testified about Cintron's arrest May 18 in a house in the 7011 block of Montour Street in Burholme.
Owens testified that Cintron had dyed his hair and beard orange, was wearing glasses, and insisted he was "Omar Morales" - the name on a driver's license he gave him.
Owens said another detective recognized Cintron from several tattoos, and he was arrested.
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