Courtesy of National Institute of Standards and Technology
Thomas was convicted of rape in 1996 cold case after a DNA hit linked him to the crime.
By Forum Staff
A 50-year-old former Far Rockaway man has been sentenced to 12 ½ to 25 years in prison after being convicted of raping a woman in her Queens home more than twenty years ago. The defendant was charged after a DNA hit linked him to the crime. The man, who was connected to the rape through forensic evidence uncovered by the District Attorney’s DNA Prosecution Unit, is already serving time in prison for two other rapes and this indeterminate sentence will be consecutive to the others.
District Attorney Brown said, “The defendant, currently serving a 50-year prison sentence, is a serial rapist. In 1996, he sexually assaulted a woman and in 2004 he sexually abused a 12-yearold girl. This man has proven himself to be a danger to all women and to society as a whole and the sentence imposed in this case – that will be served consecutive to the other sentence – will likely guarantee the defendant will never be free again.”
The defendant is identified as Richard Thomas, 50, whose last known address was on New Haven Avenue in the Far Rockaway section of Queens. Thomas was convicted last month of first-degree rape following a 12-day jury trial before Queens Supreme Court Justice Robert Kohm, who has sentenced Thomas to 12 ½ to 25 years in prison. This indeterminate sentence is to be served consecutive to his current term of incarceration.
According to trial testimony, the victim was sleeping with her husband inside their Far Rockaway home on the night of July 28, 1996, when she was awakened by a noise in the bedroom. When she opened her eyes, the victim saw Thomas standing over her. He was wearing a mask and was armed with a handgun. Thomas told the woman not to look at him or make any noise or he would hurt her. At that moment, the victim’s husband woke up and Thomas told him also not to look at him or he [Thomas] would “blow his head off.” The defendant then forced the victim out of the bed and onto the floor where he forcibly raped her. Before fleeing the scene, Thomas wiped his genitals on the floor rug and on a nearby t-shirt before fleeing.
Following a conviction in a 2006 grand larceny case, Thomas was compelled by law to submit a DNA sample to the state databank. That DNA sample linked him to two other rape cases. In the first, Thomas approached a couple in a vehicle at a Queens intersection in August 1996 and, at gunpoint, ordered them out of the vehicle. After robbing the male victim and locking him in the vehicle’s trunk, Thomas raped the woman and then robbed and locked her in the trunk. Nearly eight years later, Thomas raped and robbed a 12-year-old girl in Far Rockaway as she walked to a school bus stop. Ironically, Thomas was caught for that crime because he had been forced to submit a DNA sample, in part, due to his first victim’s lobbying efforts in June 2006 to have all convicted felons give DNA samples.
