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Hackensack police who responded to Euclid Avenue found the 41-year-old victim on the ground with blood on her arms, hands and legs shortly after 9 a.m. Saturday, said Capt. Darrin DeWitt, the officer in charge of the department.
She told them she’d been walking in her neighborhood when a man she didn't know “forced her to the ground as he sexually assaulted her,” DeWitt said.
She fought off the attacker, who fled on foot after others approached, the captain said.
The woman was taken to Hackensack University Medical Center for treatment of her injuries while police began searching for her assailant.
Thanks to help from Bergen County Sheriff's Office officers and K9 Armani, Travoy J. Wardlow, 22, of Riverdale Avenue was found hiding underneath plywood in a resident's backyard, DeWitt said.
Police charged Wardlow with sexual assault by force, aggravated sexual contact and simple assault.
They sent him to the Bergen County Jail, where he remained held Tuesday pending a first appearance in Central Judicial Processing Court in Hackensack.
"I thank the sheriff's officers for their assistance and professionalism,” DeWitt said. “By working together, we found this sexual predator and helped keep our community safer.”
Investigators from the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office Special Victims Unit Bergen County Sheriff’s Bureau of Criminal Identification also responded, he said.
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