MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — A rapist who carried out a series of knife-point sex attacks against women in Hamilton Heights and Chinatown was sent to prison for 428 years to life for raping, sodomizing and violently attacking his victims.
At an emotional sentencing on Monday where several victims spoke about how the attacks scarred them, ex-con Vincent Heyward, 23, was not even present to hear the Manhattan judge's order. He was removed from the courtroom at one point for an outburst.
Heyward was convicted of raping four women and executing a brutal sexual attack on another in a five week span during August and early September 2009. DNA evidence recovered from the victims, who ranged in age from 23 to 69, helped police track him down.
One Hamilton Heights woman, who was 59 when she was raped by Heyward in a West 148th Street alley on Aug. 1, 2009, described how the violent attack left her feeling "ruined," with a host of medical and psychological problems, and left her unable to continue working as she suffered from frequent panic attacks.
It also shook her world view in a way that made her "ashamed."
"This reaction made me feel like I'm racist and I'm ashamed of that racism, disgusted, that's not who I am," said the woman, a classically trained performer.
"What I want to say to [Heyward] is this — not all black man are you. No other black men are you," she said as Heyward, a hulking figure in handcuffs and shackles, jumped to his feet and had to be restrained by court officers prompting his removal for the rest of the proceeding.
The victim and her husband, who were newlyweds at the time of the attack, are financially struggling and near bankruptcy as a result of the rape and its long term effects.
"Please your honor, bring us peace, we deserve it," she said on behalf of all the victims, who were seated together in the second row of the courtroom and hoping to see Heyward put away for life. "Keep us and everyone we know safe from him."
Another victim, now 34, said she was unable to sleep at night for fear of an intruder in her apartment and had to quit her job because she could no longer function.
"I would stay up all night with the lights on until the sun rose," the tearful woman said. "Hearing my screams and seeing my face, I fell into a deep depression not wanting to do anything, which led to suicidal thoughts."
The woman, whose head was smashed against a marble staircase inside her Chinatown apartment building by Heyward on Aug. 23, 2009, said she "thinks twice" about wearing dresses in the summer and is in constant fear of another attack.
"I fear every day that this could happen to me again, that every man that looks at me is a potential rapist," she said.
A 69-year-old native New Yorker was raped and sodomized inside her Riverside Drive building where she'd been followed. The woman, who was squeezed so tightly she couldn't breathe, said she is trying to regain her sense of security when walking the streets at night.
Heyward also raped a 28-year-old woman who was sleeping at her 147th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue apartment on Sept. 7, 2009 and followed a 23-year-old inside her West 144th Street building, where he raped, sodomized and beat her.
Prosecutors said not only did Heyward hurt the women he attacked but also put women throughout the neighborhood in fear of leaving their homes.
"He made everyone's worst nightmare come true, not only to the five women he attacked but also to the people in the neighborhood he terrorized," Assistant District Attorney Janine Gilbert said.
While he remained at large in the late summer of 2009, police sketches of Heyward had been posted throughout the city.
Heyward, who has a grand larceny record in Virgina, asked for a shorter than life sentence and leniency through his attorneys because of his young age.
But the judge decided he is a threat to society and acknowledged that he'd be likely to reoffend if ever released.
"Mr. Heyward's violent and anti-social behavior makes him an extreme threat to society which calls for a sentence that will ensure [he] will never pose such threats in the future," Judge Zweibel said, adding that his sentence was meant to "ensure he'd never be released for the rest of his natural life."
