It took less than two hours yesterday for a Manhattan jury to convict a Bronx man who’d been linked by DNA to a 19-year-old college student’s violent rape in SoHo in 2008.
“He may have gotten away that day,” prosecutor Shannon Lucey had told jurors of Andres Suarez, 30. “But he left his mark.”
Suarez had skated for more than three years, being linked to the attack only after he was swabbed for DNA to be tested against the state’s database following a recent assault arrest. It matched DNA left at the rape scene.
Suarez had stalked his victim by subway from Brooklyn, following her to her Prince Street apartment building and pushing his way inside behind her.
“I just shut off,” she testified tearfully of how she braved the attack on the concrete floor of her building’s courtyard, Suarez’s box-cutter at her throat.
“I kind of went somewhere else,” she said.
Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr. credited the fast conviction to his office’s Sex Crimes Unit, and to the courage of the victim, who now lives in Germany. Suarez will be sentenced on Dec. 12.