Ricardo Cepates

Ricardo Cepates (born April 26, 1971) is a Honduran convicted serial rapist and kidnapper who assaulted seven women in the city of New Brunswick, New Jersey, from 2001 to 2003. His modus operandi was to attack his victims during the late afternoon or early morning in the vicinity of Rutgers University, 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 over illegal immigration. 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 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.

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. He did not immediately admit involvement. Later, DNA tests linked him to six other rapes. By the time of his sentencing, Cepates had confessed to all of the crimes and apologized to the victims in court.

Cepates is currently imprisoned at New Jersey State Prison.

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. He pleaded guilty to the charges and received probation. He was not a registered U.S. citizen at the time, and New Jersey authorities made no effort to have him deported to his native country, something that became controversial after his 2003 arrest.