By Zach Patberg
Roy Williams, 32, of 190-25 Woodhull Ave., who was released from prison Dec. 20, allegedly began his two-week crime spree on New Year's Eve when he attacked a 60-year-old woman on Wexford Terrace in Hollis and fled with her purse, the DA said.Williams stole another woman's pocketbook Jan. 3 by putting a knife to her throat as she entered her Jamaica Estates residence on Highland Avenue, according to the DA.He is also charged with moving on to two Jamaica banks – robbing a North Fork Bank on Hillside Avenue of $1,811 Jan. 4 and three days later a Bank of America down the street of $2,550, the DA said. He accomplished both by passing a note to a teller saying he was armed and willing to shoot co-workers, authorities said.On Jan. 12, police said Williams allegedly raped a 34-year-old woman in her car on Avon Street in Jamaica Estates, taking her money and car afterwards. The next morning just blocks away, Sister Margaret Faherty, 69, had stepped out of her car outside the Immaculate Conception convent on Midland Parkway when Williams allegedly approached and beat her with a pistol, breaking her nose before fleeing in her 2002 Nissan Sentra, law enforcement officials said.Williams is suspected of carjacking that same model Jan. 17, this time from a 34-year-old woman on 111th Street in Richmond Hill, authorities said.Then on Jan. 18, he allegedly robbed another North Fork Bank on Hillside Avenue, pulling his note routine to escape with $2,329, according to the DA. Police arrested Williams later that day as he stepped from a taxi on DeGraw Avenue in the Bronx. He was ordered held without bail at his Jan. 19 arraignment in Queens Criminal Court on rape, kidnapping, robbery, grand larceny and weapon possession charges. He is due back in court Feb. 14.If convicted he faces up to 50 years in prison. Just more than a week prior to the purse-snatching incident on Dec. 31, Williams was released from prison after serving more than four years for a drug conviction. “The defendant has been charged with committing a series of violent crimes that endangered lives and public safety,” DA Brown said. “He will be prosecuted vigorously and when he is convicted, we will ask that he be sentenced to a maximum term of imprisonment to protect society from further harm.”Reach reporter Zach Patberg by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 155.
