Ricardo Cepates (born April 26, 1971) is a
Honduran convicted
serial rapist
A serial rapist is someone who commits multiple rapes, whether with multiple victims or a single victim repeatedly over a period of time. Some serial rapists target children. The terms ''sexual predator'', ''repeat rape'' and ''multiple offending' ...
and
kidnapper
Kidnapping or abduction is the unlawful abduction and confinement of a person against their will, and is a crime in many jurisdictions. Kidnapping may be accomplished by use of force or fear, or a victim may be enticed into confinement by frau ...
who assaulted seven females in the city of
New Brunswick, New Jersey
New Brunswick is a city (New Jersey), city in and the county seat of Middlesex County, New Jersey, Middlesex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.[modus operandi
A (often shortened to M.O. or MO) is an individual's habits of working, particularly in the context of business or criminal investigations, but also generally. It is a Latin phrase, approximately translated as .
Term
The term is often used in ...]
was to attack his victims during the late afternoon or early morning in the vicinity of
Rutgers University
Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...
, where some of his victims were attending as students. Cepates was captured the day of his last attack after being accosted and beaten by an angry group of residents.
His crimes caused
controversy
Controversy (, ) is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of conflicting opinion or point of view. The word was coined from the Latin '' controversia'', as a composite of ''controversus'' – "turned in an op ...
over
illegal immigration
Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of that country's immigration laws, or the continuous residence in a country without the legal right to do so. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upward, wi ...
. Cepates had been arrested for attempting to assault a woman three years before the serial rapes began, but after being arrested, authorities made no progress to
deport
Deportation is the expulsion of a person or group of people by a state from its sovereign territory. The actual definition changes depending on the place and context, and it also changes over time. A person who has been deported or is under sen ...
him to his native Honduras.
Crimes
Events
#September 20, 2001: at approximately 7:30 p.m., a 21-year-old woman was attacked by a man with a broken bottle between Hamilton and Woodbridge streets. She was beaten, dragged into the nearby woods and sexually assaulted.
#October 13, 2001: at approximately 3:00 a.m., a 25-year-old woman was sexually assaulted and stabbed in her apartment on French Street.
#February 23, 2002: at approximately 5:00 a.m., a 46-year-old woman and her 14-year-old daughter were attacked at knifepoint in a field off Jersey Avenue near Baldwin Street. They were both raped.
#August 16, 2002: at approximately 10:30 p.m., an 18-year-old woman was beaten, thrown to the ground and dragged off a sidewalk between Somerset and Albany streets. She was threatened with a knife and robbed.
#June 28, 2003: at approximately 5:30 a.m., a woman was attacked at knife point between French and Louis streets. She was dragged into an alleyway and sexually assaulted.
#December 6, 2003: a failed rape occurred when a man accosted a young woman in a convenience store. She fought back and the man fled.
Investigation
In early June 2003, New Brunswick investigators started to investigate the rapes as possibility being connected to a serial rapist.
By late June, they confirmed this suspicion by finding the same male DNA at multiple crime scenes. At the same time, the rapist was ruled out in several unsolved rapes in occurred in the surrounding area.
On December 6, after the last attack, a bystander chased the assailant through a more than a foot of snow across French Street. Two other men joined him and attacked the assailant, beating him until police arrived.
When they arrested the man, he was identified as Cepates, then 32 years old. He was working as a construction worker at the time and possibly as a
day laborer
Day labor (or day labour in Commonwealth spelling) is work done where the worker is hired and paid one day at a time, with no promise that more work will be available in the future, and outside the protection of labor and civil rights laws. It i ...
. He was married and had one child.
He did not immediately admit involvement. Later,
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid (; DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of al ...
tests linked him to six other rapes.
He pleaded not guilty to all charges and was held at the Middlesex County Adult Correction Center on $1,625,000 bail.
Legal proceedings
In April 2004, a grand jury formally indicted Cepates on several counts of aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, making terroristic threats, weapons possession, aggravated assault, burglary and child endangerment.
Later in the year, Cepates was convicted on all counts. In February 2005, he was sentenced to 139 years in prison. In sentencing, judge Frederick DeVesa said that Cepates, "terrorized an entire community for two years and the Rutgers University campus".
By the time of his sentencing, Cepates had confessed to all of the crimes and apologized to the victims in court.
In 2014, the
New Jersey Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of New Jersey is the supreme court, highest court in the U.S. state of New Jersey. In its current form, the Supreme Court of New Jersey is the final judicial authority on all cases in the state court system, including cases cha ...
denied Cepates a new hearing.
Cepates is currently imprisoned at
New Jersey State Prison
The New Jersey State Prison (NJSP), formerly known as Trenton State Prison, is a state men's prison in Trenton, New Jersey operated by the New Jersey Department of Corrections. It is the oldest prison in New Jersey and one of the oldest correct ...
.
New Jersey inmate search
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Controversy
Cepates' crimes attracted controversy among New Brunswick residents when it was found out that before he committed the rapes, he had been arrested for attempting to assault another woman. In 1998, he was arrested for grabbing a woman and holding a knife to her throat as she walked down Livingston Avenue. He was charged with criminal restraint and possession of a weapon for unlawful purposes.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cepates, Ricardo
1971 births
Living people
21st-century American criminals
American male criminals
American people convicted of rape
Prisoners and detainees of New Jersey
Rape in the United States
Violence against women in New Jersey