Rapist convicted after Grubhub order leads to arrest – NBC New York

A Bronx man could spend the rest of his life in prison for raping two women and sexually assaulting a third in his apartment within six days, with one victim making a desperate cry for help via a food delivery app.

Kemoy Royal was sentenced to 34 years to life in prison after being found guilty of rape and other sex crimes in May, Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark said Friday.

“The defendant brutally sexually assaulted three women. Thanks to the quick response of one of the victims, we were able to bring this sexual predator to justice and prevent him from terrorizing further victims,” ​​Clark said.

Royal met his first victim through a dating app before meeting her in person on June 13, 2022, according to the investigation. He invited the 27-year-old to his Eastchester apartment after the two had spoken to each other for a few days on the app. There, he raped her and forced her to perform sexual acts, prosecutors said.

The very next day, Royal met the second victim on the street, a 26-year-old woman he allegedly knew through a friend. He lured her to his home, then wouldn’t let her leave and threatened to kill her. He tried to force her to perform sexual acts and choked her before finally letting her go hours later.

On June 18, 2022, the third victim went to Royal’s home after talking to him on a dating app. He wouldn’t let the 24-year-old leave the apartment, took her cell phone away and threatened to kill her, prosecutors said. Similar to the two previous victims, Royal strangled and raped her.

The cry for help came the next morning in the form of an online Grubhub food order to the Chipper Truck Café in Yonkers. Surveillance video from inside the restaurant shows employees taking the order for an Irish breakfast sandwich, a hamburger, and something else: a cry for help.

“When I saw the message on the paper, I said, ‘Just call the police and don’t send the food because this is something different. It’s an emergency,'” said owner Valentine Bernejo.

Alice Bernejo says she always reminds her employees to read the entire order.

“I drove them crazy by telling them they have to read the fine print, the small print. That way they know they have to check and read it before they put anything in the bag and luckily that saved the girl because they did that,” she said.

The message said the woman was being held hostage by a man she barely knew. Among the additional instructions on the Grubhub order, the woman wrote, “Please call the police” and “Please don’t make it obvious.”

The workers called police, and officers arrived at a home on Pratt Avenue shortly after 6 a.m. Royal opened the door, thinking food was coming, but instead it was police who arrested him. The woman was safely rescued from the home.

Information about the 34-year-old royal’s lawyer was not immediately available.