GRAMERCY — A New Jersey man just two weeks out of prison groped a woman and took a photo up her skirt as she was walking near Stuyvesant Town, according to a police report.
Lamberty Sabriel, 33, of Hoboken, was arrested on July 14, just two weeks after his release from state prison, for groping the woman on East 18th Street, according to police and Department of Corrections and Community Supervision records.
►See also: The Season of 'Upskirt' Photo-Taking is Upon Us, DA Says
The victim was walking west on East 18th Street shortly before 9 p.m. when she felt someone walk closely behind her, reach up her skirt and grab her butt, police said. Turning around, she saw Sabriel, who reached his phone down and took an upskirt photo, according to a police report.
Officers managed to catch Sabriel nearby, and prosecutors charged him with forcible touching and unlawful surveillance, records show. A judge ordered him held on $7,500 bail, and he’s due back in court on July 21, according to court records.
Sabriel was recently released from Bare Hills Correctional Facility upstate, where he had spent three months on a parole violation, having previously served two years at the facility on a drug dealing charge, records show. He had also spent two years at Five Points Correctional Facility, near Ithaca, N.Y., where he was locked up from 2007 to 2009 on a robbery charge, records show.
A lawyer for Sabriel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. in April warned that the arrival of warm weather meant a likely increase in people taking upskirt photos. He urged the public to be vigilant, asking anyone who sees an an assailant taking invasive photographs to report the crime to police, an MTA employee or to call 911.
