By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
LOWER MANHATTAN — A former patrolman with a history of sexual assault was found guilty Wednesday of sexually abusing two women while on duty in Morningside Heights and West Harlem.
The ex-officer, Wilfredo Rosario, 41, attacked the women in two separate incidents. He lured one into his car by offering to help enroll her children in a community program and then groped her. He gained access to another victim's apartment by saying he was delivering an application form for her child. Once inside he entered her bedroom and grabbed her against her will, prosecutors said.
Both women testified in State Supreme Court that they had met the officer on separate occasions when he was on patrol. They chatted and Rosario then took their phone numbers, assuring them that he would call with helpful information about programs for their children.
"He was a man they should have been able to trust — a man who should have been there to help them," Assistant District Attorney Artie McConnell said in his opening statement.
Rosario was convicted in January of offering to expunge a teenager's trespassing summons in exchange for a sexual favor in Riverside Park in 2002.
He was fired from the police department after that conviction.
He also has pending rape charges for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman with the same baiting strategy.
Prosecutors said Rosario told his rape victim he would stop by her apartment with information about a 26th Precinct after-school program for her daughter.
He then raped her in the apartment and on a separate occasion abducted her and forced him to give him oral sex, according to the charges.
“This case was particularly troubling to our Manhattan community," Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. said in a statement about the Wednesday conviction.
Rosario "abused his position of power," the DA said, "repeatedly taking advantage of vulnerable women when he was obligated to protect and defend them."
Rosario faces from two to seven years in prison for Wednesday's conviction and up to 25 years in prison if he's found guilty of rape on those pending charges.
