The Brooklynite was the fifth teenage suspect grabbed by police since the shocking Thursday night attack inside the Osborn Playground in Brownsville.
TODD MAISEL/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Denzel Murray, front, Ethan Philip and Shaquell Cooper, three of five suspects in the rape of an 18-year-old woman on Saturday, were led into Central Booking on Schermerhorn Street in Brookyn on Tuesday.
A brother of one suspect came forward Tuesday with an unverified 10-second video, shot with a cell phone, showing a smiling girl who’s naked from the waist down — supposedly the victim.
“You saying yeah?” says a voice off camera. “It’s lit” — meaning the youths had the go-ahead for sexual relations with the victim, according to Billy Anderson, brother of suspect Ethan Phillip.
A cell phone was recovered, and the NYPD was seeking a search warrant to scour its contents, a police source said. One of the teens told cops that he shot video of the victim and sent it to a relative, the source said.
Police released surveillance footage of the suspects entering a nearby deli before the alleged gang rape occurred. The cops have now arrested all five of the teenage suspects.
Anderson said he was told the teens spied the victim and her father having sex on a tennis court when they arrived at the park, and challenged the dad’s claim of getting chased away with a gun.
“No man in his right mind would leave their daughter like that,” Anderson told the Daily News.
TEENS CHARGED IN PLAYGROUND RAPE SAY SEX WAS CONSENSUAL
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Rape suspect Travis Beckford was arrested Tuesday.
Police indicated the stories told by both father and daughter — who were drinking in the park — were credible and consistent. Two of the suspects, contradicting the woman’s tale, claimed the sex was consensual, a law enforcement source told the Daily News.
“It’s complicated,” the source said.
A source said the alleged victim — who was clearly injured and traumatized after the attack, according to police — was in foster care and living out of state until about 18 months ago. The man who was with her in the park is her biological dad, police said. Incest is a felony.
Police said the claim that the accuser was having sex with her father only came from two of the suspects. It’s under investigation by police; the dad hasn’t been charged or asked for a DNA sample.
Bratton said police planned to inform community leaders the day after last Thursday’s incident. Instead, the NYPD dropped the ball and Mayor de Blasio saying he never heard a word about the sexual assault until Sunday around noon.
“There’s no denying that the department should have put some information out on Friday,” Bratton acknowledged — even though cops had few details.
THEODORE PARISIENNE FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
One of five suspects in rape on a Brooklyn playground is escorted into Brooklyn's Special Victim's Unit office on Tuesday.
MARCUS SANTOS/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Denzel Murray, front, Ethan Philip and Shaquell Cooper are three of the teens facing arraignment for allegedly raping an 18-year-old in Brooklyn.
Beckford joined his four co-defendants in police custody as his Tilden classmates were left reeling by both word of the arrest and a heavy police presence in the hallways.
A Beckford friend insisted that he was a good kid and cops made a mistake.
“Travis wouldn’t — trust me,” said the 15-year-old classmate. “(It was) probably his friends. He was probably there, but he didn’t do it. Travis is mad sweet.”
Beckford has a prior arrest for marijuana possession, cops said.
Police had earlier collared Onandi Brown, 17, along with 15-year-olds Shaquell Cooper and Phillip and 14-year-old Denzel Murray in the assault. Two were arrested, and two were brought in by their mothers to speak with police.
Suspect Cooper was arrested three months ago for smashing a robbery victim in the head with a baseball bat in a Brooklyn subway station, according to court papers.
The suspects were all charged as adults with rape, sex abuse and committing a criminal sex act.
With Nathan Place, Graham Rayman, Rocco Parascandola
jfermino@nydailynews.com
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