Homeless man with 25 prior arrests busted in rape of NYC jogger, is suspect in two other sex crimes: sources

A homeless man wanted for two sex crimes — and who has at least 25 prior busts — was arrested in connection with the rape of a jogger in the West Village on Thursday and charged in all three cases, police and law-enforcement sources said. 

Carl Phanor, 29, was busted at the Port Authority bus station several hours after the assault, which took place around 5:30 a.m. at Pier 45, the sources said.

Police say he grabbed a 43-year-old woman from behind as she ran in Hudson River Park, choked her and sexually assaulted her before robbing her and, according to a witness who called 911, leaving her shoeless and with blood running from her face and elbows.

He was charged with rape, grand larceny, predatory sexual assault and invalid use of a credit card.

Phanor also was hit with charges in two previous attacks on city women — one from late March and the other in early October.

Prior to the sex-crime arrests, Phanor had been busted at least 25 other times, mostly for petit larceny, assault, drug possession and drug dealing, sources said. Seven of those arrests were sealed.

He refused to answer questions from reporters as he was escorted by detectives out of the NYPD’s Special Victims Division in Lower Manhattan Thursday night.

Phanor was handcuffed and wearing a white Tyvek suit as he was led into a black police vehicle that took him to central booking ahead of his arraignment at Manhattan Criminal Court.

Cops tracked him down after he used stolen credit cards at a Target in Midtown to buy $39 worth of Red Bull energy drinks and at the Port Authority, where he tried to buy a bus ticket, according to sources.

Police said in April that they were hunting for the fiend after he allegedly attacked a woman out on a run near West and Clarkson streets on March 27.

The woman was jogging on Pier 40 around 6 a.m. when the suspect, who was on a bike, rode up to her, pushed her down, choked her and sexually assaulted her before swiping her cell phone and taking off, cops said at the time. 

On Oct. 6, the creep allegedly attacked a 48-year-old woman walking on the FDR Drive service road near East 37th Street around 5 a.m. He came up from behind, placed her in a chokehold and tried to rip off her clothes and rape her but the woman managed to fight him off, police said then.

He did manage to steal her cell phone and wallet and later used her credit cards to buy something at a smoke shop on First Avenue, police said.  

Then on Thursday, Phanor — who was most recently living at a Manhattan homeless shelter — allegedly grabbed the jogger from behind near West and Christopher streets and choked her until she lost consciousness, before knocking her to the ground, taking off her clothing and raping her, police said.

He robbed her of her wallet, debit card, cellphone and headphones before taking off on a Citi Bike, cops and sources said.

“She was in workout clothes but they were kind of torn up, they were dirty, she wasn’t wearing any shoes, she was just wearing one sock,” said Gabrielle Sumkin, 23, who was out for a run when she came across the woman standing on the path, and called 911.

“This woman seemed like she was legitimately very hurt and it was clear that something had happened to her,” the Greenwich Village resident told The Post.

“She was just kind of saying ‘I need help, I need help.’”

Cops from the Port Authority Police Department later spotted the suspect, who’d shaved his eyebrows, and took him into custody, sources said.

“A lot of questions are going to be asked” about who was looking for the suspect between the attacks, a source noted. He had multiple I-Cards, or notifications to cops to arrest a suspect if they’re seen, out in his name and it’s not clear why cops didn’t bust him after the first two assaults.

Phanor was charged on Thursday with sexually-motivated robbery, strangulation, predatory sexual assault and criminal sex act in the March case. He was hit with charges of robbery and grand larceny in the one from October.

All three of the early-morning attacks are eerily similar and shows the suspect used the same approach in all of the assaults.

Phanor had previously been busted at least 25 other times, most recently in Manhattan for allegedly stealing a box of KIND granola bars from a Midtown Walgreens in Dec. 2019. He was sentenced to time served in that case.

Prior to that, he was arrested for drug possession and possession of burglary tools in Oct. 2019 and pleaded guilty at his arraignment on the condition he completed a program, court records show. When he didn’t show up on mandatory compliance dates, two bench warrants were issued in his name in Jan. 2020, the records show.

The suspect has no open criminal cases in New York, other than those he was charged in Thursday, court records show.

Additional reporting by David Propper and Steven Vago