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Queens Man Arrested in Forest Park Stun Gun Sex Attacks, Police Say

By Katie Honan | August 4, 2017 8:39am | Updated on August 4, 2017 1:46pm
 Mark Andrade, 45, of Richmond Hill, was arrested Wednesday after investigators matched his DNA from another arrest in Nassau County, according to Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce.
Mark Andrade, 45, of Richmond Hill, was arrested Wednesday after investigators matched his DNA from another arrest in Nassau County, according to Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce.
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DNAinfo/Trevor Kapp

RICHMOND HILL — Police arrested a man they believe attacked six women in Forest Park from 2011 to 2013, officials said.

Mark Andrade, 45, of Richmond Hill, was arrested Wednesday after investigators matched his DNA from another arrest in Nassau County, according to Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce.

He’s suspected of six violent attacks on women in Forest Park since 2011, with his last on Aug. 26, 2013 — when he Tasered and then raped a 69-year-old woman who was jogging along the park’s bridal path, officials said.

His attacks also include sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl in 2011, which is when he began his spree, according to police. Investigators worked through dozens of tips about the rapist, even cuffing the wrong suspect in 2013.

 Sketches of the suspect were posted around the park following the August 2013 attack.
Sketches of the suspect were posted around the park following the August 2013 attack.
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DNAinfo/Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska

The city finally installed long-delayed cameras at the park last year, three years after the last attack, after residents demanded more safety measures. 

Andrade has six prior arrests, including one in Suffolk County for insurance fraud, records show. 

But his DNA had not been added to the central database until an arrest in Nassau County for grand larceny, according to the NYPD.

His DNA was submitted to the database in December 2016, and the profile was distributed to investigators across the state.

“It did, finally, and we were able to make that identification,” Boyce said at a crime update press conference at 1 Police Plaza.

So far he’s being charged just with a sexual assault on March 29, 2013 — when he shocked the victim with a stun gun — as investigators look to tie him to the five other sexual assault cases, officials said.

He shocked the 23-year-old victim multiple times with a stun gun in the March 29 assault, demanding she show her breasts and crotch, according to the complaint. He also told her, "we're going to have sex, I have a condom," before sexually assaulting her. 

As he attacked her she removed a bottle of Beck's beer from his pocket and threw it into a nearby bush, afraid it was a weapon, the complaint said. 

Investigators retrieved that bottle as part of the crime scene and swabbed it for DNA, which helped identify him four years later, officials said.

Andrade was arraigned Friday in Queens Criminal Court as police work to tie him to the others. Information on his lawyer, through the Queens Law Associates, was not immediately available. 

“I will tell you that we have been working this case straight since 2013, since its inception,” Boyce said.

“So, we never really lost sight of it.”