Wednesday, June 8, 2005
D.A. BROWN: DNA EVIDENCE PLAYS KEY ROLE IN CONVICTION OF SERIAL RAPIST WHO ATTACKED YOUNG WOMAN IN QUEENS IN EARLY 90S; DEFENDANT FACES UP TO 25 YEARS IN PRISON
Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown announced today that a Queens man has been convicted after trial of the 1994 rape of a 22-year-old woman in Queens as the result of a New York City Police Department initiative involving DNA evidence in unsolved rape cases.
District Attorney Brown said, “The defendant was convicted when his DNA was scientifically linked to the young female victim who was violently attacked in the early 1990s in Queens. In 2002 the medical examiner linked the 22-year-old victim’s rape kit to the defendant’s DNA which had been placed into the State’s DNA Databank after his 1998 conviction for the rape of a 23-year-old woman. The case underscores yet again the crucial importance of DNA evidence which is irrefutable proof of guilt or innocence.”
The District Attorney identified the defendant as Mohammad Karimzada, 32, formerly of 68-03 Maurice Avenue in Woodside, Queens, who was a used car dealership employee. The defendant was found guilty on Monday, June 6, 2005 of Rape in the First Degree, Assault in the Second Degree, Sexual Abuse in the First Degree and Unlawful Imprisonment in the First Degree after a four-week bench trial before Queens Supreme Court Justice Michael B. Aloise who set a return date of June 28, 2005. The defendant, who is serving 16 years in prison for a previous Queens rape, faces eight and one-third to 25 years in prison.
District Attorney Brown said that the defendant previously pled guilty on October 30, 1997 to Rape in the First Degree before Queens Supreme Court Justice John B. Latella Jr. after being accused of raping two young women in two separate incidents in Queens County and was sentenced to eight to 16 years in prison.
The District Attorney said that according to trial testimony early on August 12, 1994 outside Webster Hall, a Manhattan club, the victim accepted from the defendant an offer of a ride to the Staten Island Ferry. The defendant then drove to a dark and secluded area on 53rd Street in Queens near the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and attacked the victim. He punched her in the face, pulled off her pants and underwear, choked her and then raped her. The victim also sustained a swollen lip, scratches to her back and shoulder and head pain.
District Attorney Brown said that the victim was able to break free, get out of the vehicle and run to a nearby deli where she phoned a friend and then took a cab to the friend’s home. The victim’s parents took her to Saint Vincent’s Hospital in Staten Island where a rape evidence kit was prepared. The semen recovered was later matched to the defendant.
The investigation was conducted by Detectives Linda Hardy and Brian Kenzik of the New York City Police Department’s Queens Special Victims Squad, now retired.
Assistant District Attorney Dianna L.
Megias of the District Attorney’s Special Victims Bureau is prosecuting the case
under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Marjory D. Fisher, Bureau
Chief, Kenneth M. Appelbaum and Lucinda C. Suarez, Deputy Bureau Chiefs, and
Eric C. Rosenbaum, Chief, DNA Prosecutions Unit and the overall supervision of
Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Charles A. Testagrossa
and Deputy Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Daniel A.
Saunders.