The teenage terror who bowled over a beloved Catholic school teacher has been implicated in a host of other crimes, police and prosecutors announced this week.
Police said that Eric Ferguson, 18, of 3105 Avenue V, has been charged with three counts of robbery, five counts of assault, 10 counts of grand larceny and car theft following a spree of crimes stretching back to May 30.
Ferguson was arrested on Friday after he was connected to the brutal attack on computer teacher Patricia McGowan right outside Good Shepherd School at 1940 Brown Street, where McGowan has worked for 43 years.
Police said that McGowan, 62, had just parked her car and was walking to the school at 6:43 a.m. on June 10 when Ferguson punched her in the face, pushed her through a swinging metal gate and knocked her to the ground.
He grabbed the woman’s purse and ran off, police said. When McGowan ran into the school to report the robbery, Ferguson reportedly returned, fished her car keys out of her purse and fled with her Toyota Corolla.
McGowan suffered some scrapes and bruises as well as a large black and blue welt on one side of her face. She spent the last week of school recuperating from the attack at home and missed graduation, workers from Good Shepherd said.
After a three-day investigation assisted by a shockingly revealing surveillance video, Ferguson was taken into custody and questioned.
Police said that McGowan’s car was found at the corner of Avenue Y and Brown Street near Ferguson’s home.
Cops then determined that he was allegedly responsible for robbing a Chinese food deliveryman on Burnett Street just before 11:30 p.m. the night before the attack in front of Good Shepherd. A few hours before that robbery, he punched another woman and robbed her of a CD player on Batchelder Street, police alleged.
Investigators also linked him to two other purse-snatchings.
He allegedly robbed a woman of her bag at Bragg Street and Avenue U at 5:40 p.m. on May 30 and snagged a purse off another woman on Burnett Street near Whitney Avenue in Plumb Beach at 7:30 a.m. on June 2.
During the lull in his activity, Ferguson was arrested for driving around the borough in a stolen car, officials said.
“The detectives did an outstanding job,” explained Captain George Mastrokostas, the commanding officer of the 61st Precinct.
Officials from the Kings County District Attorney’s office said that Ferguson was arraigned Saturday on $200,000 bail.
If convicted of the crimes he’s currently facing, Ferguson could face upwards of 20 years in prison.
Over the weekend, Ferguson’s mother told the New York Daily News that she was sorry about any pain that her son caused.
“To Ms. McGowan from my family, I’m sincerely sorry and I apologize,” Nadine Rheubottom told reporters. “I hope she feels how sincerely sorry I am.”
“I love my son, but what he did was reprehensible,” she said.
