Cops investigate whether park rape is related to 2 other assaults

Nassau County police are investigating whether a rape during the weekend in Valley Stream State Park is related to two attempted sexual assaults on the same day last month -- one in Lynbrook, the other also in Valley Stream, police said.

The 60-year-old woman who was raped Sunday described her attacker as 29 to 35 years old, 5-foot-8 to 5-foot-9, with a thin build. The woman had been walking alone on a hiking trail near the park's Hendrickson Avenue entrance at about 11:10 a.m. when she was attacked, New York State Park Police Chief Richard K. O'Donnell said.

The other two women reported being attacked Aug. 12, just 20 minutes apart, by a man with a thin build who had been riding a bicycle, police said Wednesday in two separate news releases.

In the first instance, a 58-year-old woman in Lynbrook said that at 8:45 p.m. a man 5 feet, 8 inches tall got off his bike, walked up to her home on Lois Place, forced open the door and "grabbed her in an inappropriate manner over her jeans" and then tried "to remove her pants, before choking her," police said.

The man fled after the woman called for help, and a neighbor called police, police said. Police did not say whether the victim required medical attention.

According to police, 20 minutes later in Valley Stream, a 30-year-old woman who was walking south on Mill Road from the Long Island Rail Road station was approached by a man, who grabbed her buttocks from behind. She ran west on Jedwood Place, police said, where the man caught her, "pushed her to the ground and punched her in the face."

The man tried to rip off her shirt "and pin her to the ground," police said, before she fought him off. The man then fled on a bicycle, police said.

The woman "was treated for scrapes and cuts to her arms and legs" at an area hospital, police said.

Police ask anyone with information to call Nassau County Crime Stoppers anonymously at 800-244-TIPS.