By Shayna Jacobs and Olivia Scheck
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — A career criminal and sex offender pleaded not guilty Wednesday to an Upper East Side mugging spree that targeted women.
In the three November attacks, Tyrone Hunter, 55, followed the women home and robbed them, prosecutors said.
In one incident, Hunter entered a woman's apartment, "blindfolded her and forced her to undress," Assistant District Attorney Shanda Strain said at Hunter's Supreme Court arraignment Wednesday.
He also threw another woman down a staircase after a struggle, Strain said.
Hunter was indicted on burglary and attempted robbery charges for the muggings on Nov. 24 and Nov. 25 at Upper East Side apartment buildings he selected because they did not have doormen, prosecutors said.
In each case Hunter "placed his hand over their mouths" and forced the women into their buildings where he "demanded money from them," prosecutor said at his criminal court arraignment last month.
Although he has only been charged with attacking three women, Hunter is still considered a suspect in two robberies that occurred on East 78th and East 79th streets in November, prosecutors said.
Hunter was caught on surveillance footage leaving a crime scene, prosecutors said. He was also picked out of a police lineup and matched to a fingerprint left at a scene, prosecutors said.
Hunter, who most recently lived in the Bronx, has "spent most of his life in jail," prosecutors said last month.
He is being held without bail on Rikers Island.
