The homeless woman who was allegedly raped at knifepoint by an illegal immigrant near the Coney Island boardwalk said she believed her tormentor was trying to kill her and recalled repeatedly reminding her attacker that “God is watching over him.”

Daniel Davon-Bonilla, a 24-year-old migrant from Nicaragua, is accused of sexually assaulting the unnamed woman, while his friend Leovando Moreno is accused of attacking the victim’s boyfriend with a pipe. The victim has chosen not to reveal his identity to the media.

In an interview published by the New York Post on Tuesday, the anonymous victim described her fight against Davon-Bonilla because she was afraid he wanted to murder her.

Get our latest news for FREE

Subscribe to receive The Christian Post’s top stories (plus special offers!) delivered daily/weekly to your email address. Be the first to know.

She expressed her regret that women are victims of attacks like hers every day and that many of them never receive justice.

“It wasn’t rape, it was attempted murder. He didn’t try to rape me, he tried to kill me,” she said. “I kept telling him that God was watching over him.”

At the time of the attack, the victim and her boyfriend, 34-year-old Ray Ramsammy, were living under a boardwalk behind Maimonides Park Stadium. The camp was home to both homeless and migrants. Ramsammy and his girlfriend had already been living there for two weeks when the attack took place.

When Ramsammy returned to the camp one day after getting coffee, he found his girlfriend being sexually assaulted. He told The Post that he saw his girlfriend being held down, choked and threatened with a knife as her attacker forced himself on her. When Ramsammy tried to intervene, Moreno hit him with a pipe.

“I tried to pull the guy away from her and he tried to stab me,” Ramsammy said, recalling that he also yelled at someone to call the police. “I grabbed the pipe with one hand and the other was behind me and hit me with a brick. Hit me in the back.”

While Ramsammy said he was “a little hurt,” he noted that his girlfriend was “very hurt” and was still trying to recover from the rape.

“She’s really confused right now. When it got dark last night, she became paranoid,” he said. “Today she’s dating Latin men and thinks it’s going to happen again. She’s really upset.”

The victim expressed hope that Davon-Bonilla would receive a long prison sentence and expressed fear that he might kill someone.

According to the Post, Davon-Bonilla had already served two months in prison after agreeing to a plea deal in an April 2023 rape case in which he was accused of raping a woman in a hotel converted into a migrant shelter.

As WABC reported on Tuesday, the victim is a 46-year-old woman who was treated in a New York hospital after the attack.

Davon-Bonilla was charged with rape, assault, sexual abuse, menacing and illegal possession of a firearm, according to WABC. Moreno, who is from Mexico, was charged with assault and illegal possession of a firearm and underwent a psychological evaluation at the hospital.

Local police authorities report that the suspects were being housed at a migrant shelter. Referring to Davon-Bonilla’s previous conviction in connection with the assault at the Brooklyn migrant shelter, the newspaper noted that the migrant could face deportation as a result of the incident.

In a press conference on Tuesday, New York Mayor Eric Adams called the Coney Island attack a “despicable act” and criticized the city’s status as a “sanctuary city,” which prevents local authorities from cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement when charges are brought against illegal immigrants.

“The law doesn’t allow us to coordinate with ICE,” Adams said. “That’s the law. And you know, I’m not happy with it. And I think he’s the prime example of what’s wrong with not doing that coordination.”

“And that family that was there was traumatized. They were traumatized by that event. And my sympathies go out to them,” Adams added. “These few migrants that are in our city should be held accountable when they break the law. And I believe he was, he came in illegally and then he was just allowed to stay. I just remember hearing something about his first entry into our country. I’m not 100% sure, but I think in one of my briefings I heard that.”

News of the woman’s rape in New York came shortly after an interview with three whistleblowers from the Department of Homeland Security who accused U.S. Customs and Border Protection of failing to enforce a 2005 DNA law.

In an interview with former CBS News reporter Catherine Herridge published Sunday, whistleblowers Michael Taylor, Fred Wynn and Mark Jones alleged that CBP retaliated against them for raising concerns about the agency’s violation of the DNA Fingerprinting Act of 2005.

The law requires border authorities to collect DNA samples from non-US citizens detained for immigration violations. The DNA collected from the migrants is then sent to the FBI. According to Jones, this law helps authorities track down criminals and reduces the time it takes to find them.

Herridge asked whether DHS’s failure to comply with the law contributed to the death of Rachel Morin, a mother of five who was killed by an illegal immigrant last August. The whistleblowers agreed that this failure may have played a role in Morin’s death. The mother’s killer had multiple encounters with border agents before the murder, which provided multiple opportunities to collect his DNA.