NY Daily News
April 20, 2014
A violent Rikers Island inmate jailed on charges of assaulting a woman viciously beat a 24-year-old medical intern, breaking her jaw and causing numerous facial fractures, officials said Thursday.
Joseph McRae’s unprovoked 11:30 a.m. attack Wednesday on Stephanie Porcelli in the East River lockup’s George R. Vierno Center was caught on a security camera.
The video, observed by the Daily News, shows the petite Porcelli getting pounded once in the face by a powerful right-handed sucker punch thrown by the 5-foot-9, 150-pound McRae.
The tape shows Porcelli, wearing a white lab coat and carrying a clipboard in her right hand, reaching to open a door to an office McRae was standing next to. As she approached the door, McRae feigned a punch, apparently prompting Porcelli to say something to him.
When she reached for the office doorknob, he hit her with a right roundhouse blow to the face, sending her sprawling backward onto the cement floor. As McRae hovered over her, a guard rushed to stop the attack.
Porcelli was set to go into surgery Friday at Booth Memorial Hospital in Queens.
“Her injuries are actually a broken jaw and multiple facial fractures,” a source said. Stephanie Prochelli, a 24-year-old medical intern, was blindsided by McRae while walking through the Rikers mental health unit.