A 40-year-old woman was robbed and nearly strangled in her Upper East Side building early yesterday — the fourth vicious assault on a female in the area in as many weeks, police said.
Police said the attacks are not related to the notorious rapist who has terrorized the Upper East Side since 1994, attacking 16 women.
They believe they are the work of another serial attacker stalking the area.
Authorities said an unidentified woman was returning to her East 89th Street home between Second and Third avenues around 2 a.m. when a man wearing a multicolored jacket followed her into her building.
The assailant forced her down a hallway and behind a staircase, where he began choking her until she blacked out. When the woman awakened about 10 minutes later, she found her clothes were disheveled and her purse missing.
The victim described her attacker as a light-skinned black man in his early 20s, 5-foot-11 and 175 pounds. He was wearing a blue jacket, tan khaki pants and a ski cap.
Police have linked the attacker to three other incidents in the area since March 17.
In the first attack, a 30-year-old woman was choked into unconsciousness inside her East 96th Street apartment.
Two other women were choked and robbed since then — one on March 28 on East 81st Street and another on April 1 near First Avenue and East 71st Street, police said.
“This individual comes up either behind them or in front of them and grabs them by the throat,” Inspector John Cutter said.
The latest attacks have further heightened fears among women living in the fashionable neighborhood.
“One of the reasons I moved to this neighborhood was because of the safety,” said Denise Desjardins, a market researcher who lives down the block from where yesterday’s choking incident occurred.
“Now it’s making me think again that safety isn’t one of the reasons to live on the Upper East Side.”
There have been other recent assaults on women in upper Manhattan.
Two women in their 20s were raped and robbed inside a Harlem building yesterday by a gun-wielding man, and another young woman was raped inside the Isaac Homels Houses near East 92nd Street on Wednesday.
These sex attacks do not appear to be related or linked to the East Side rapist pattern, police say.
Police ask anyone with information about these attacks to call (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential, police say.