Convicted rapist on parole charged with attempted murder after brutal attack leaves NYC mother in coma
A man who was free on parole after spending more than a decade behind bars for rape was arrested Friday on suspicion of beating a New York woman.
Miguel Jiraud, 30, was charged with attempted murder for allegedly attacking 44-year-old Diana Agudelo, a single mother of two, as she rode her electric bicycle on Randall's Island on her way home to Queens, according to the New York Post.
The alleged attack happened May 16 around 11:30 p.m., and Jiraud is accused of beating Agudelo, stealing her bicycle and leaving her, according to FOX 5.
She reportedly had facial fractures and a cracked skull and was rushed to Elmhurst Hospital, where she remains in critical condition. She has been in a coma since she was found.
FOX 5 reported that Agudelo rode her bicycle to and from work to help save money for her children's college educations.
After leaving the courthouse, a shackled Jiraud denied beating Agudelo while he was being placed in a police vehicle.
"I found her," he told a reporter. "The evidence is going to speak for itself. Do you want to see my hands? My hands are perfect."
"I found her," he repeated. "I stood there for an hour and went to work late. They did not say that."
The reporter then confronted him about his rape conviction.
"And I've not done nothing wrong since I've been home," he said. "Not a violation, not a traffic stop."
The NYPD did not immediately return a comment request.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNN
42 minutes ago
- CNN
Sports betting is legal and growing more popular. Harassment of athletes by angry gamblers is rising too
Gabby Thomas being harassed at last weekend's Grand Slam Track meet was shocking – except, actually, it wasn't, given how often it seems to be happening. Thomas, a three-time Olympic gold medalist, said she was verbally abused at the meet, reporting on X that a 'grown man followed me around the track as I took pictures and signed autographs for fans (mostly children) shouting personal insults.' Thomas' statement was in reply to another post on X – which has since been deleted – showing a video of a person heckling Thomas while she was on the starting line, shouting, 'You're a choke artist; you're going down, Gabby.' The social media user bragged about how his actions had benefitted his bet, writing: 'I made Gabby lose by heckling her. And it made my parlay win,' alongside a screenshot of two multi-leg bets on the FanDuel sportsbook platform. FanDuel said it had banned the person responsible for the abuse from its platform, explaining it 'condemns in the strongest terms abusive behavior directed towards athletes.' 'Threatening or harassing athletes is unacceptable and has no place in sports. This customer is no longer able to wager with FanDuel,' the statement shared with CNN Sports added. It was in 2018 that the US Supreme Court struck down a 1992 federal law, which had prohibited most states from allowing sports betting. Gambling on sports is now legal in 39 states, which experts warn has opened the floodgates for a torrent of abuse towards professional and collegiate leagues from bettors who blame them for their financial losses. In March, the NCAA launched a campaign aimed at tackling what it described as 'the alarming prevalence of abuse and harassment student-athletes face from angry fans who lost a bet.' According to an analysis of abusive messages sent via social media to college athletes, coaches and officials during the Division I championships, 12% – some 740 messages – were related to sports betting, according to the NCAA. Instances of such messages included one user who threatened a college athlete with the message, 'Yo no big deal but if you don't get 22 points and 12 boards everyone you know and love will Be dead,' according to the analysis, which was produced with Signify Group. Meanwhile, over 540 abusive betting-related messages – including death threats – were leveled at men's and women's basketball student-athletes and game officials during March Madness, a preliminary set of data trends found. Clint Hangebrauck, managing director of enterprise risk management at the NCAA told CNN: 'I think athletes are under attack right now, frankly, on social media and in person, and a lot of the people slinging the biggest bullets are sports bettors.' Hangebrauck, who has worked at the NCAA for 15 years, said that there has been a surge of athletes receiving abuse since the federal ban on sports betting was struck down, adding that in certain states – including Ohio and North Carolina – a barrage of abuse towards student athletes was 'almost immediate.' The NCAA is now seeking a ban on proposition bets, colloquially known as prop bets, on college athletes, calling the phenomenon 'a mental health nightmare.' Prop bets are made on outcomes not associated with the final score and are often based on individual performances. 'You could even perform well, and you're receiving all this negative feedback from betters because you didn't hit specific betting lines,' Hangebrauck added, noting that about half of the states that do allow gambling in the US have banned prop bets on student athletes. Jason Lopez, assistant professor in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin told CNN Sports: 'The way that the newly legalized sports betting universe works is that it's very common to make prop bets where, even though it's a team sport, you can actually bet on the performance of individual players.' 'It turns what could be a team game into an individual performance, too. And so it's easy to then focus whatever anger you have on the bet at individual players,' Lopez, whose research focuses on sports media and betting, explained. The issue of bettors harassing athletes is widespread across sporting disciplines, with tennis and NBA players reporting instances of abuse. For a few professional athletes, it's an opportunity to punch back. In reply to a social media user who gave him grief about his seeming nonchalance over a bad performance in a game, NBA superstar Kevin Durant posted on X in November 2024, 'Stop blaming me for losing money because you have a gambling problem.' Great dub suns, and for my parlayers, better luck next time lol For others, however, social media comments made cross any acceptable line. In the past few weeks, MLB players Lance McCullers Jr. and Liam Hendriks have both reported that their families have been on the receiving end of death threats. Houston Astros pitcher McCullers Jr. revealed he received threats from a man who took to social media and threatened to find his kids and 'murder them.' The Houston Police Department later traced these threats to an intoxicated sports bettor from overseas who had lost money betting on the Astros' May 10 game against the Cincinnati Reds, per Reuters. Boston Red Sox pitcher Hendriks reported similar abuse, telling that 'with the rise of sports gambling, it's gotten a lot worse.' 'Threats against my life and my wife's life are horrible and cruel,' Hendriks wrote in a post on his Instagram Stories, according to 'You need help. Comments telling me to commit suicide and how you wish I died from cancer is disgusting and vile. Maybe you should take a step back and re-evaluate your life's purpose before hiding behind a screen attacking players and their families. He added: 'Whether it be Venmo requests, whether it be people telling you in their comments, 'Hey, you blew my parlay. Go f*ck yourself,' kind of stuff. And then it's, 'Go hang yourself. You should kill yourself. I wish you died from cancer.' 'That one kind of hit a little too close to home for me with everything I've gone through,' Hendriks, who in 2023 announced he had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, added. Joe Maloney, senior vice president of strategic communications for the American Gaming Association, told CNN Sports in a statement: 'The outcome of a bet is never an invitation to harass or threaten athletes, coaches, or officials. Abuse of any kind has no place in sports.' 'The legal, regulated industry offers the transparency and accountability needed to identify bad actors and collaborate with leagues, regulators, and law enforcement to deter misconduct and enforce consequences. Unlike illegal and unregulated market apps or bookies, legal operators work every day to uphold the integrity of competition and ensure a responsible wagering environment,' Maloney added. Lopez pointed out that, while sports betting has only recently been legalized and commercialized across the United States, most sports have been associated with wagering since their beginnings, albeit in a more underground capacity up until recently. 'There's just a basic fact about (sports) companies and organizations that run these games for entertainment which is that gambling helps increase interest – it drives interest. So they like all the betting that's happening around them; it builds interest in their sport. 'Their athletes being abused, especially if they're collegiate athletes, could harm their entertainment product. So they have to take very public stances about this in order to try to mitigate the idea that you know this entertainment product is putting people at risk,' he added. Hangebrauck added to CNN: 'I think there's a responsible way to engage in sports betting, and a lot of fans and people do so. Ninety-six percent of people overall generally lose in sports betting in the long run, so just be responsible about how you react to that – own it yourself.'
Fox News
42 minutes ago
- Fox News
More than 20 people injured after boat catches fire in New York; captain charged with DWI
A boat captain was arrested after the vessel caught fire and injured more than 20 people near City Island in The Bronx over the weekend. Joshua Brito, 33, was charged with driving while intoxicated and reckless endangerment following the incident that happened on Saturday at around 8 p.m. near the east end of Hart Island, according to WABC. The 22 people on the boat were injured, including one person in critical condition. According to officials, Marine 4, a New York City Fire Department vessel, was doing a routine patrol in the area when the boat on fire was spotted in the Long Island Sound. Marine units pulled three people from the water while 19 others swam to shore on Hart Island before they were transported by Coast Guard, police and fire department units to nearby City Island to receive further medical evaluation at a hospital. "Marine 4 gave a verbal for a boat fire and multiple people in the water to the Bronx dispatcher," New York City Fire Department Assistant Chief Mike Meyers said in a statement. "At that point, the Bronx dispatcher had land units respond to come into City Island and begin to accept patients. Marine 4 grabbed three people out of the water. At that point, they transported them to one of the docks that was close by, where Engine 70 was waiting and EMS was waiting as well to begin CPR on the victims." "The other 19 folks swam to Hart Island," he continued. "They were just off the east end of Hart Island, and then they were picked up by the NYPD Coast Guard and FDNY boats and transported back over to the docks at the Yacht Club on City Island." Authorities continue to investigate the cause of the fire. "The boat, in order to fit that many people on it, had to be a pretty decent-sized boat," Meyers told reporters at the scene on Saturday. "Marine 4 did notice them earlier in the evening and they said there was a lot of people on that boat."
New York Post
an hour ago
- New York Post
Homeless parolee convicted of subway shove a decade ago arrested for another unprovoked transit attack on 28-year-old woman: cops
A deranged homeless man on parole after serving time for attempted murder — for shoving a transgender woman onto subway tracks a decade ago — assaulted another straphanger in an unprovoked attack within the transit system on Sunday, according to cops. The suspect, 42-year-old Rolan Reid, asked a woman to swipe him into a Manhattan station with her MetroCard on the mezzanine level of the 14th Street B/D/F station Sunday at 2:45 p.m., police and sources said. When she refused, Reid struck her with a metal rod and then punched her in the arm, according to law enforcement sources. Rolan Reid is accused of hitting a woman with a metal rod and punching her in the arm inside of the 14th Street B/D/F station. Wikipedia The 28-year-old victim sustained a laceration in the unprovoked attack, the NYPD said. She was taken to Bellevue Hospital by paramedics and was listed in stable condition. Officers from Transit District Two in the Sixth Precinct arrested the suspect at the station, cops said. Reid was charged with one count of assault to cause physical injury with a weapon, possession of a forged instrument – sources said he had 14 bent MetroCards in his possession – and criminal possession of a weapon, police said. Reid was on parole until March 2028 after he was convicted of another subway assault, which investigators designated a hate crime. On June 5, 2015, Reid confronted a transgender woman on the southbound No. 6 platform at the Bleecker/Lafayette Street station at 9 a.m., police said. He was ranting when he approached the victim. 'What are you looking at?' he screamed at the woman, also 28. Then he threw a plastic bottle he had just fished out of a trash can at her and charged. He shoved her onto the tracks and started hurling anti-transgender comments at her as she desperately tried to climb out, according to cops and prosecutors. Police obtained security footage of Reid rummaging in a nearby trash can just moments before he threw the plastic bottle at the victim. The 28-year-old victim was taken to the hospital and listed in stable condition. Wikipedia Other riders rushed to the victim's aid and lifted her off the tracks. She was taken to Bellevue Hospital where she was treated for cuts and bruises and released, cops said. Reid was charged with second-degree attempted murder and second- and third-degree assault. The charges were upgraded to hate crimes, investigators said. He has 20 other arrests — many of them transit-related, including fare beating and menacing, sources said. In a separate subway crime on Sunday, three teens cornered a 14-year-old on the staircase of the northbound Q train station at Avenue U in Brooklyn around 4:40 p.m. and stole his iPhone and his backpack containing his sneakers and a coat, cops said. Police said there were no injuries in during robbery and the incident was under investigation. The teen suspects remain at large. Despite the two Sunday incidents, subway crime decreased to the second-lowest level in 27 years, according to NYPD stats released in April, with major crime dropping 18% during the first quarter. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch reported that for the first time in seven years there were zero murders in the transit system. She credited the drop to a surge in NYPD patrols of subway platforms and trains to combat crime and violence. 'The women and men of the NYPD are driving record-breaking reductions in crime and violence,' Tisch wrote in the report. 'In the first quarter of this year, we've cut shooting incidents down to the lowest number in history and made our subways safer than they've been in nearly a decade. Our precision policing strategies aren't just working — they're delivering historic results and making New York City the safest big city in the nation.'
