Man who rescued woman from alleged attempted sexual assault testifies

A recent college graduate who won a courage award from former Vice President Joe Biden testified Tuesday against the 19-year-old who prosecutors said tried to rape a woman at a Uniondale house party before shooting at her rescuers.

SUNY Cortland alumnus Kyle Richard told jurors in Nassau County Court that he realized he’d been shot after he felt a jolt of pain and saw flashes of light in the early morning of July 23, 2017.

Richard, 21, of Lakeview, also identified defendant Ahkhazyah Wright as both the man who shot him in both legs and the person whom a “hysterical” female partygoer told him minutes earlier had tried to rape her.

“One hundred percent,” Richard replied when prosecutor Jared Rosenblatt asked how certain he was that Wright was his assailant.

Wright, of Roosevelt, is on trial for charges that include attempted murder, attempted sexual abuse, assault and gun offenses. He maintains his innocence.

Last spring, former Vice President Joe Biden dubbed Richard a “hero” at a Manhattan ceremony for the national Biden Courage Awards.

The annual ceremony, hosted by It’s On Us and the Biden Foundation, honors students who are working to prevent sexual assault.

Richard, who was a star linebacker on Cortland’s football team and is the son of a Nassau police sergeant, also testified Tuesday that his planned career path was to work as an advocate for sexual violence prevention.

“Absolutely,” the witness said when Rosenblatt asked if his plans were “a development” of his experience in July 2017.

Prosecutors say Richard and two friends heard a woman’s cries for help at the Maple Avenue party before forcing open a bathroom door and finding Wright with one hand around the alleged victim’s neck as his other hand fumbled with his zipper.

Prosecutors say the woman accused Wright of trying to rape her before the friends kicked Wright out of the house.

But outside a short time later, Wright shot at Richard and his  two friends, with bullets slicing through both of Richard’s legs before he made it inside the house, according to the district attorney’s office.

Minutes later, prosecutors say, Wright fired a second volley of shots at another group of friends who were returning to the party after a deli run.

That time, Wright shot Michael Abiola in the back before he also made it inside the house, according to prosecutors.

Richard struggled to stay composed Tuesday as he described trying to comfort Abiola — another member of his close group of friends — right after the shootings.

The witness also remembered how a Muslim friend said a prayer over them.

“I didn’t know if he was going to make it or not … He looked much worse,” Richard testified about the other gunshot victim.

Abiola still has a bullet lodged in one of his arms, prosecutor Emma Slane said in her opening statement Monday.

The defendant’s attorney, Robert Schalk, called the prosecution’s case “flawed” in his opening statement.

He got Richard to acknowledge during a cross-examination Tuesday that direct testimony Richard gave about Wright threatening to shut the party down earlier that night after he was denied alcohol wasn’t something Richard had told the grand jury.

Richard also told Schalk that Wright and the woman who accused Wright of a rape attempt had clothes on when the bathroom door opened.