TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2005
D.A. BROWN: QUEENS MAN ADMITS TO RAPE
OF TWO WOMEN
Linked to Crimes by DNA Evidence, Faces 24 Years in Prison
Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown today announced that a Hollis, Queens, man has pleaded guilty to raping a teenage girl and a 67-year-old woman in the summer of 2002 after DNA evidence linked him to the crimes.
District Attorney Brown said, “After his DNA was scientifically linked to the two victims the defendant admitted that he sexually assaulted them in June and July 2002. The defendant’s actions have scarred both women for life and the prison term to be imposed by the court is more than justified.”
District Attorney Brown said, “This case underscores yet again the crucial importance of the DNA databank -- which stores the DNA of sex offenders and other violent felons -- because DNA evidence is virtually irrefutable proof of guilt.”
The District Attorney identified the defendant as Leebert Morrison, 25, whose last known address was 91-43 195th Street in Hollis, Queen s. The defendant pleaded guilty earlier today to two counts of Rape in the First Degree before Queens Supreme Court Justice Evelyn L. Braun who indicated that she would sentence the defendant to a determinate term of 24 years in prison on October 21, 2005.
District Attorney Brown said that the defendant admitted that on June 12, 2002, while the 16-year-old victim was walking to her South Queens home from the store, he grabbed her from behind and dragged her into a backyard, approximately a block from her home, where he forcibly raped her. Following the incident a rape evidence kit was prepared. He further admitted that the following month, on July 31, 2002, he broke into the Jamaica home of his 67-year-old victim and, finding her asleep, he forcibly raped her while choking her.
In September 2002, the defendant was arrested for burglary. He pleaded guilty on December 9, 2002, and was sentenced to two years in prison. At the time of his plea, the defendant gave a DNA sample, and, thereafter, the defendant’s DNA “hit” on the rape kits from both victims.
Assistant District Attorney Leigh Bishop of the District Attorney’s Special Victims Bureau prosecuted 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.