Police have arrested the second man wanted for raping a worker while robbing a Brooklyn massage parlor, police said Thursday.
Mohammed Alwi, 25, is facing rape, burglary, robbery and assault charges for the Dec. 23 knifepoint attack inside the Sunset Park spa.
NYPD cops nabbed him on Wednesday in Crown Heights.
Alwi’s accused accomplice, Mohammed Izzeddin, 22, was arrested Dec. 29 and tried to shrug off the rape allegations by claiming their victim was a sex worker.
“I didn’t rape her!” Izzeddin shouted as he was led from the 66th Precinct stationhouse. “It’s a prostitution spot!”
Izzeddin tried to put some of the blame on Alwi, according to prosecutors.
“While at the precinct, the defendant admitted to being at the scene of the robbery,” Assistant District Attorney David Ingle said during Izzeddin’s arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court last week. “The robbery was the other’s idea. The defendant denied any sexual assault.
During the proceeding, Izeddin’s mother, a Syrian refugee, put her head in her hands, crying and shaking.
Security cameras captured Izzeddin on his phone in front of the massage parlor on 59th St. and Ninth Ave. while waiting to be buzzed in around 6 p.m., prosecutors say.
Gardiner Anderson for New York Daily News
Mohammed Izzeddin in custody leaving the 66th Precinct stationhouse in Brooklyn on Dec. 28, after being charged in the Dec. 23 rape of a 49-year-old woman. (Gardiner Anderson for New York Daily News)
Once inside, he demanded money from three workers inside of the spa while Alwi allegedly brandished a knife.
“Both of them took turns dragging all three complainants by their hair and necks throughout the location,” Assistant District Attorney Chelsea Jacobi said at Alwi’s arraignment Thursday afternoon.
Izzeddin was caught on camera stuffing stolen money from the women into Alwi’s pockets, according to prosecutors.
Izzeddin then allegedly pushed the 49-year-old worker into a massage room.
As Izzeddin was raping one woman, Alwi was “standing a few feet away right outside that room and pointing his knife at the other two” women, said Jacobi.
“If you do not give me the money I am going to rape you,” Izzeddin told the woman repeatedly before following through on his threat, according to prosecutors.
He allegedly placed her hands around her throat, choked her, and then hit her multiple times. He told her to get a condom and then forced himself on her, according to prosecutors.
On his way out, he took $160 from the woman and $1,800 more from the other workers, prosecutors say.
Alwi’s defense attorney, Lance Lazzaro, called prosecutors’ complaint “an abomination” and welcomed a “cross examination of the detective in this particular case.” Judge Joshua Glick agreed that there are “very substantial problems with this complaint.”
“It’s a prostitution house, and is still operating in business,” Lazzaro said. “If the DA all of a sudden is going to get behind this whorehouse, that’s fine.”
Cops said Izzeddin and Alwi ran off afterwards to Izzeddin’s Bay Ridge home about 10 blocks away. Alwi lives in Canarsie, cops said.
Two days after the attack, cops released surveillance footage of both suspects and asked for the public’s help identifying them.
Around that time, the victim, who asked that her name not be used, spoke in Chinese to PIX11, tearfully describing her ordeal.
“When I opened the door, the bad guy hit me in the face very hard,” she said. “I was afraid of hurting the other two girls so I opened the door for him.”
“I had not rested for 24 hours, not at all on any day since, because I could not calm down and now I am slowly adjusting,” she added. “I think I may see a psychiatrist next.”
‘I didn’t rape her!’: Brooklyn man charged with violent rape, detailed by prosecutors, and robbery of massage parlor worker
Izzeddin was initially ordered held on $20,000 bail, but on Wednesday was released without bail after Alwi was arrested.
