Alleged serial groper in Nassau faces sexual abuse charges

A Plainview man was arraigned at the Nassau Courthouse in Hempstead court Friday on three counts of sexual abuse for allegedly groping three women over the past two weeks.

News 12 Staff

Sep 20, 2019, 9:59 AM

Updated 1,842 days ago

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A Plainview man was arraigned at the Nassau Courthouse in Hempstead court Friday on three counts of sexual abuse for allegedly groping three women over the past two weeks. 
Police say Onel Jiminez-Maradiga, 20, sexually assaulted women in three separate Nassau towns.
The first attack allegedly happened in Plainview on Sept. 9, another in Levittown on Sept. 12, and most recently in the parking lot of the Roosevelt Field Mall Thursday morning.
Police say surveillance video captured Jiminez-Maradiga following the Levittown victim, Christine Piacente, onto her front porch and assaulting her in the doorway of her house.
She says she threw her coffee on her attacker and started banging on her front door and screaming. She says the last week has been troubling.
"I couldn't go anywhere. I was afraid to come out of my house," she says.
As the investigation unfolded, police didn’t release details about the first incident until after the suspect had already been arrested.

Detective Lt. Richard Lebrun says officials were taking the time to review the details of the case. "We were reviewing video, we were creating a profile of the individual, that way we could put more information out to the public,” he says.
Police say each of the attacks had the same characteristics.
Officials say there may have been a fourth attack that they don't know about yet.
"We believe there could be another victim out there," says Lebrun.
Onel Jiminez-Maradiga was ordered held on $300,000 bond. He pleaded not guilty to three counts of sex abuse in the first degree.