A Manhattan man on parole for the rest of his life for a drug offense was charged yesterday with attacking four women on the Upper East Side – two of whom were raped.
Kendall Brown, 32, was picked up at his home on West 118th Street on Saturday, about 36 hours after the knife-point rape of a 49-year-old woman near 83rd Street and York Avenue, police said.
“This is just another example of a parolee committing a crime. He is a career criminal with numerous arrests,” said Police Commissioner Howard Safir.
“He should not be on parole. He should be in jail. He has been in and out of institutions. I have stood up here again and again discussing parolees who have committed other crimes after they were paroled.”
A spokesman for the State Division of Parole said Brown had such a good record behind bars, he was issued a “merit” certificate. The parole board determined he had a “nonviolent history” and decided “he did not represent a threat to the community,” the spokesman said.
Brown – who is not suspected of being the “East Side Rapist” who has attacked 16 women – was charged with rape, robbery, sodomy, sexual abuse and unlawful imprisonment in the four attacks, which have taken place since last March.
Detectives also suspect him in a fifth attack – a rape on April 15 in the West 70s.
Sources said Brown has a history of drug offenses, but no previous criminal history to indicate violent behavior.
He was arrested in November 1987 and again in March 1988 for possession of a controlled substance. The dispositions of those cases were not immediately known.
But he was caught with some 300 vials of crack in Binghampton, N.Y., in August 1988, sources said, and sentenced in January 1989 to 81/3 to 25 years. He was placed on work release in January 1998 and was given a job as a “house parent” in a group home for adults. He was granted lifetime parole on May 28, 1989, the sources added.
“What particularly concerns me is that he was working in a group home,” said Safir, referring to Brown’s employment in the Yonkers facility, which he did not identify.
Police said that in addition to the attack last Friday, Brown was also charged with three other crimes:
* On March 28, he allegedly followed a 32-year-old woman into a building on East 81st Street, put an arm around her neck and choked her into unconsciousness before fleeing with her pocketbook.
* On April 1, he attacked a 40-year-old woman inside a compactor room in a building on First Avenue, placing his arm around her neck and threatening her before fleeing with an unspecified amount of cash, cops charged.
* On April 4, he followed a 24-year-old woman into the elevator of her building near 92nd Street and First Avenue before forcing her into her apartment, where he raped her, cops said.