One of four young men arrested in the sexual assault of a 50-year-old woman after she left a church in Queens confessed to taking part in the crime, it was reported on Saturday.
Justin Williams, 17, expressed remorse for the incident.
‘I don’t deserve to pray,’ he told the New York Post in a jailhouse interview.
Surveillance video shows a gang of four men following the helpless 50-year-old churchgoer before they allegedly forced her to perform oral sex at gunpoint.
The footage also shows the unidentified mother-of-two walking along 150th Street in Queens, New York with two bags in her hands before the alleged sexual assault occurred.
The four men, who are also accused of robbing her, appear in the video walking along the other side of the street.
The suspects walk in line together before one separates from the group after spotting the helpless victim leaving a church prayer service.
Justin Williams, 17, confessed to being one of the four men who allegedly pounced on a 50-year-old woman after she left a church in Queens, New York and forced her to perform oral sex at gunpoint. He is seen above being led away by police officers on Friday
Surveillance footage shows the moments before a 50-year-old mother-of-two (pictured) was assaulted
The four suspects are seen in the video, following her and walking in line together along the other side of the street
But Williams said he did not know that she had just left the Celestial Church of Christ.
If he did know, he said it ‘would have made a difference.’
Julisses Ginel, 19, Williams, and Brandon Walker, 20 – all of whom are residents of Jamaica, Queens – were arrested over the attack on Thursday.
A fourth man is still being hunted by police.
Their bail was set Friday at $500,000 bond and $250,000 cash bail on the sex charges and $50,000 bond and $25,000 cash bail for the robbery.
They are due in court July 28.
The victim was forced to strip naked and perform sexual acts on the perpetrators.
Prosecutors on Friday described the ‘pack-like mentality’ the group of men used to prey on the woman with Ginel confessing to serving as the ‘lookout’ while the sex attack took place.
One then appears to separate from the group upon spotting the victim, who had just left a church service
‘The crimes that the defendants are accused of committing that night are despicable and are deserving of significant punishment,’ District Attorney Richard Brown said.
‘Two of them are alleged to have subjected her to heinous acts of sexual abuse.
‘It is alleged that with a pack-like mentality the defendants and an unapprehended fourth man set upon a defenseless woman coming from church.’
Police said the victim left the Celestial Church of Christ in Jamaica, Queens shortly before 11pm on Tuesday when she was attacked.
The men allegedly robbed the woman following the sexual assault and threatened her with two fake guns.
Williams allegedly told investigators that he and Brandon took turns engaging in oral sex from her.
The fourth suspect, who is still at large, then allegedly put a condom on and did it again.
Assistant District Attorney Eric Rosenbaum read part of Ginel’s statement to the court during their arraignment on Friday.
‘It was suppose to be just a robbery thing,’ Ginel allegedly told investigators.
‘I was only there. I saw her naked, and she gave them oral sex. I went to get condoms to help my boys. When I came back, the third one was finishing up.’
Ginel allegedly admitted to being the ‘lookout’ so no one interrupted the attack.
The victim returned to the Celestial Church of Christ following the attack where Pastor Kehinde Oyetunde alerted the police.
‘She was crying. She was scared, she was crying. She was just crying like a baby, we couldn’t control her,’ he told CBS2.
The men allegedly led her at gunpoint back down the block to 150th Street and Beaver Road where they attacked her behind a garbage truck demanding her wallet.
‘They tell me, ‘you don’t have money so take off your clothes!” the victim told The New York Daily News. ‘I said, ‘What? In the middle of the street?”
The two men called over three other guys nearby to join them before they forced her to strip naked in the street and demanded she perform oral sex on them.
She claims she tried to scare them away by saying she was HIV-positive – which she is not – but that didn’t even frighten them. In fact, one of the men, who she described as short, went off to buy a condom.
The NYPD arrested three men in connection with the sexual assault on Thursday in Queens New York and brought them on a ‘perp walk’ captured by a DailyMail.com photographer. Those detained include Julisses Ginel, pictured, who is aged just 19
‘They said, ‘if you don’t do that, I’ll shoot you,” the victim recounted to the Daily News. ‘So I did what I had to do.’
She says one of the attackers called her a ‘stupid African woman’ and slapped her.
After the attack and the group of men fled, the woman ran back to the church, half-naked and crying to her pastor, Kehinde Oyetunde said.
‘She was crying and her face was full of rubbish,’ Oyetunde said.
‘She had her clothes in her hands. She said that they pulled a gun on her and took her stuff, then wanted to sleep with her.
‘She lied and told them she was an HIV patient and to please leave her alone.’
Her pastor picked her up from the hospital where she sought treatment and brought her home. She returned to work the following day but was still shaken.
‘This is horrible,’ the pastor added. ‘She is a very kind woman. She’s been with my church for 10 years.’