Bathroom attacker had bullied victim
BY ANDREW STRICKLER
Newsday Staff Writer
October 19, 2006, 9:07 PM EDT
One of two teenagers accused of a horrific ****** assault on a developmentally disabled man in a bowling alley bathroom in Shirley had a history of picking on his victim going back years to when both were treated at a Long Island psychiatric center, police said Thursday.
Steven Rodriguez, 19, of Shirley, knew the 21-year-old victim when they were patients at the Sagamore Children's Psychiatric Center, a state-run facility in Dix Hills, and Rodriguez was known to have picked on the victim during that time, authorities said.
Suffolk Det. Lt. Gerard Gigante said Thursday that the assault may have occurred after Rodriguez learned that the victim spoke recently about Rodriguez' time at Sagamore.
"It appears ... that the victim had mentioned it, and Rodriguez didn't like that people knew that he'd been in the facility," Gigante said.
Gigante said Rodriguez was at Sagamore because he was "a troubled child." He said Rodriguez was treated at the facility for as long as two years but did not offer a specific time-frame.
Citing patient confidentiality, Sagamore director Dennis Dubey declined to comment Thursday.
The bowling alley attack, police said, occurred after Rodriguez taunted the victim outside AMF Shirley Lanes on the Greens in Shirley on Sunday evening. The victim entered the bowling alley and was followed into the bathroom by Rodriguez and another youth, Michael Lunsford, 17, of Shirley.
Police said Lunsford held the victim down while Rodriguez sexually assaulted the victim with a mechanical plumbing tool known as a closet snake. The victim's screams drew the attention of others in the bowling alley, and the pair fled.
Suffolk police commissioner Richard Dormer displayed in a Yaphank police station Thursday a tool similar to the one used in the attack. The 3-foot metal pipe has a crank at one end and a flexible metal rope at the other. Police said they believed Rodriguez cranked the tool several times in what Dormer described as a "cruel and sadistic crime.
"This appears to have been done to humiliate as well as assault this young man," Dormer said.
Police said the victim was taken to Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center where the tool was removed after a lengthy surgery. They said the victim suffered serious internal injuries and was in stable condition.
Rodriguez was arrested Monday and arraigned Tuesday in First District Court in Central Islip. He was ordered held on $100,000 bail or $200,000 bond at the Riverhead jail. Lunsford was arrested Wednesday and was arraigned Thursday in First District Court. Both are charged with felony aggravated ****** abuse and could face 25 years in prison, if convicted.
Police said Rodriguez also has charges pending against him for three incidents this year. One day in August, police said, Rodriguez threw a vacuum cleaner at his mother and threatened another person with a metal pipe. In May, Rodriguez was arrested after he called 911 and said he planned to blow up a Pathmark .grocery store in Shirley.
There was no answer at the Lunsford and Rodriguez homes in Shirley Thursday.
"We're just concerned about [the victim] and his family, and that's all we have to say about it at this time," said a bowling alley employee who declined to give her name.