By Nguyen Thanh Tuan
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
UPPER EAST SIDE —Police released new surveillance video yesterday of the man who allegedly grabbed and sexually assaulted an 85-year-old woman on the Upper East Side.
The new video shows a clearer image of the tattooed man wearing a white tank top as he is walking on the street.
The assailant, described by police as in his 20s of 5-foot-9, attacked the woman on 83rd Street near Madison Avenue early Monday. He pushed her into a doorway, snatched a ring and sexually assaulted her, police said.
A previous surveillance video showed the man pretending to talk on a cell phone before putting the woman in a headlock on the stoop of a brownstone on Madison Avenue and East 83rd Street.
He reportedly dragged the 100-pound woman along East 83rd Street and down the stairs in front of a building where he forced her to perform oral sex on him.
NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said Wednesday that the department was offering a $12,000 reward for information leading to arrest in the 83rd Street rape.
"We have gotten 11 tips on our hot line and we are investigating all of them." Kelly said, adding that cops have narrowed down the suspect's circuitous route before the attack.
Kelly said the suspect wound his way from 86th street to walked to Fifth Avenue, wandered back and forth a few blocks north and south before landing on Madison Avenue, where he headed south to 83rd Street encountered the 85-year-old woman and assaulted her.
Kelly said the suspect then fled to the subway station at 86th Street and Lexington Ave.
"She is an elderly woman and she is obviously traumatized by this event," Kelly said, saying the elderly woman has been upset by the media spotlight.
He added that police have not entirely ruled out a connection between an attempted rape of a 25-year-old woman on the Upper East Side a week before the attack on the elderly woman. But Kelly said the description of the two suspects didn't match.
The attack on the elderly woman shocked and upset many Upper East Siders.
""It makes me want to find him and bash in his skull," said Carol Lewis, 70, who has lived in the neighborhood for 40 years.
