Career criminal suspected of raping NYC jogger held without bail, prosecutor cites ‘predatory’ pattern of attacks

An oft-arrested and released homeless man accused in the brutal rape and beating of a random Manhattan jogger stood in silence at a Friday court appearance where he was locked up without bail.

Suspect Carl Phanor, 29, wore a grey hoodie and matching sweat pants at a Manhattan Criminal Court hearing on charges for the savage Thursday assault and a pair of similar sex crimes from earlier this year. DNA evidence linked him to the Thursday attack on a jogger out for her morning run, said Assistant District Attorney Lauren Breen.

“He demonstrated a clear predatory pattern of behavior,” she said before Judge Jonathan Svetkey ordered him held pending a Nov. 9 court appearance. The victim remained in the intensive care unit at Lenox Hill Greenwich Village.

Defense attorney Michael Papson asked for Phanor to be placement under suicide watch and protective custody, while asking for a mental health evaluation.

The depraved suspect was busted inside the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown shorty after the latest attack, law enforcement sources said, where he was trying to sneak aboard a Greyhound bus out of the city. He was buying a ticket with the victim’s credit card, and had just purchased $39 worth of Red Bull at a Target store.

Phanor shaved off his eyebrows in a failed attempt to hide hide his identity, a police source indicated. He was carrying the rape victim’s wallet when arrested following the attack on West St. near Pier 45.

The alleged recidivist sex offender, charged with raping and robbing the West Village jogger after choking her unconscious, was free despite more than two dozen prior arrests, eight of them sealed, authorities said. Officials quickly charged him in two other sex crimes from earlier this year, including one eerily reminiscent of the Thursday attack.

His earlier run-ins with the NYPD ran the gamut from stealing perfume inside the Manhattan Mall to stabbing a stranger on the street to a drug possession bust, and police described the oft-arrested Phanor as spending most of his time hanging out in city parks and along bike paths.

Authorities in Florida and New Jersey also reported five arrests on a variety of charges dating back a decade.

Phanor allegedly assaulted a jogger on March 27 near Clarkson St. and West St. on Pier 40 — only blocks from the latest attack. The 39-year-old woman was running when Phanor approached her on a bicycle and pushed her to the ground, police said.

He choked the victim, sexually assaulted her and removed her cell phone, authorities said.

Months later, he attempted to rape a 48-year-old woman walking uptown on the FDR Drive service road near E. 37th St. in Midtown, cops said. Phanor allegedly grabbed the woman from behind and choked her as he ripped her pants off on Oct. 6. Though the woman fought him off, the suspect fled with her wallet and cellphone.

A jogger who came to the latest victim’s aid at Pier 45 along West St. near Christopher St. recalled other runners continuing callously past the woman after Phanor took off with her wallet, cellphone and headphones after the 6 a.m. attack.

“That was really disturbing to me because they just left her there and everybody’s running by not even paying attention to her,” recalled good Samaritan Gabrielle Sumkin. “I bet so many people ran past her and didn’t pay any mind to it. Nobody really looked in our direction, which is disappointing.”

Phanor was charged with strangulation, predatory sexual assault, criminal sex act, sexually motivated robbery, robbery and grand larceny, police said.