New Jersey Journal
A sexual predator faces up to 35 years in jail after being convicted for the brutal rape of a Kearny woman in 2002 - a cold case that wasn’t cracked until DNA evidence from a sexual assault in Newark linked the man to the crime, officials said.
David Vasquez, 30, formerly of Belleville, was found guilty in New Jersey Superior Court for the sexual assault of a 21-year-old Kearny woman in May 2002 near St. Stephen School on Midland Avenue, officials said.
Vasquez, who is already in prison for another sexual assault, was found guilty of three counts of second-degree sexual assault and one count of third-degree terroristic threats, said Assistant Hudson County Prosecutor Tracey Quaide.
Vasquez was not found guilty of the first-degree crime of kidnapping, and three counts of sexual assault during a kidnapping.
When Vasquez was arrested on Aug. 17, 2006 for the Kearny attack he was already incarcerated at the Essex County Jail for the aggravated sexual assault of a 16-year-old girl on Dec. 1, 2005 in Newark, officials said.
DNA taken from Vasquez in the Newark case was placed in a federal database. That’s when authorities found it matched DNA evidence that was lifted from the Kearny victim’s underpants.
Quaide credited the victim with remaining steadfast in the face of “vigorous” questioning by a defense attorney.
“I would never have been able to proceed this far if we didn’t have a victim who was very cooperative and emotionally very strong,” Quaide said.
The Kearny woman, now 28, testified during the two-week trial that she was walking on the sidewalk near the school in the early-morning hours when Vasquez came up behind her, grabbed her, and threw her to the ground and threatened to kill her.
He then raped her in an ordeal prosecutors believe may have lasted up to 20 minutes.
The case had gone cold because the victim was unable to identify her attacker in a police lineup.
The crime had happened early in the morning, in the dark, and the victim avoided looking at her attacker because she feared he would follow through on a death threat if he thought she could identify him, Quaide said.
Vasquez testified last Thursday he had met the victim at a Newark nightclub the Saturday before the attack, and claimed they had consensual sex.
Prosecutors said Vasquez could never identify the nightclub where he said he and the victim met.
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