FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, July 6, 2018
Brooklyn Man Sentenced to up to 20 Years in Prison for Raping a Teenager at Gunpoint in 1994
Indicted as John Doe in 2004; Arrested in 2015 After Providing DNA Sample Upon Release from Prison
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez today announced that a 48-year-old Brooklyn man has been sentenced to up to 20 years in prison for raping a 15-year-old girl at gunpoint in 1994. A DNA profile of the defendant was created in 2002 and he was indicted as John Doe two years later. After he was released from prison in 2015, he provided DNA that matched the sample that was recovered after the rape, leading to his arrest.
District Attorney Gonzalez said, “Rape results in trauma that lasts a lifetime and we will never stop seeking justice for those who have been sexually violated. With today’s sentence, the defendant has been held accountable for this deplorable 24-year-old crime, affording the victim a measure of closure for the horror inflicted upon her as a teenager.”
The District Attorney identified the defendant Franklin Gardner, 48, of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. He was sentenced today by Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Matthew Sciarrino to an indeterminate sentence of 10 to 20 years in prison following his guilty plea in April to first-degree rape and related charges.
The District Attorney said that, according to the investigation, on August 28, 1994, the victim, who was 15 at the time, was walking into her building at the Glenwood Houses in Flatlands, Brooklyn. As she was entering her apartment, the defendant forced her up to the roof at gunpoint and raped her. The victim immediately told a neighbor and her parents. She was taken to Brookdale Hospital, where a sexual assault evidence collection kit was administered.
In 2002, semen recovered when the rape kit was administered was tested as part of a backlog clearing project and a male DNA profile was generated. The defendant’s DNA was not in the database and no match was found. In 2004, the case was indicted with the defendant identified as John Doe to ensure that the statute of limitations did not expire. Until it was amended in 2006, the statute of limitations on rape when the identity or whereabouts of the offender were unknown was 10 years.
In 2015, the defendant, as required by law, provided a DNA sample after serving a 20-year prison sentence in New Jersey for a carjacking he committed. His DNA matched the sample from the 1994 rape, which was stored in a DNA database, and he was arrested on December 15, 2015.
The case was prosecuted by Senior Assistant District Attorney Deborah Cohen and Assistant District Attorney Daniel Newcombe, of the District Attorney’s Special Victims Bureau, under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney Miss Gregory, Bureau Chief.
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