Mass. rape suspect arrested in N.J.
Charged with attacks in Westborough
By John R. Ellement, Globe Staff | July 17, 2007
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/artic ... ted_in_nj/

A routine traffic stop in a New Jersey town helped lead authorities to an illegal immigrant from Brazil who was charged yesterday with raping women in two states, including an eight-day rampage west of Boston in 2003 that terrorized several women, officials said.

Marcelo G. Mota is being held in a New Jersey jail on $1 million cash bail on charges of raping a New Jersey woman in September 2005 and two Westborough women in August 2003, authorities said.

He also is charged with attacking a Hopkinton woman, who fought him off before she was sexually assaulted. He confessed to the crimes in both states after his arrest, authorities said. It is unclear when Mota will return to Massachusetts to face the charges.

"It's such a relief to all of us to have this," Westborough Police Chief Alan Gordon said yesterday as police and prosecutors from Middlesex and Worcester counties announced the arrest.

"We had two victims of rape who were traumatized, and also the entire community was traumatized by it."

In August 2003, Mota was living in Framingham and working for a company that cleaned commercial buildings, Middlesex District Attorney Gerard T. Leone Jr. said at a press conference at the Hopkinton police station. He said none of the victims knew Mota and he did not have access to the homes of the victims through work.

On Aug. 6, Mota allegedly broke into an apartment in Westborough and raped a 24-year-old woman. On Aug. 13, Mota allegedly attacked a 58-year-old woman in another Westborough apartment.

Both victims of those rapes have moved out of town, but are ready to testify against Mota, said Worcester District Attorney Joseph Early Jr., who will prosecute Mota in those cases.

"Their intestinal fortitude, their courage, you can't say enough about them," Early said. "You have to commend them."'

On Aug. 14, Mota allegedly broke into a two-story condominium in Hopkinton and attacked a 41-year-old woman in her second-floor bedroom, police say.

The woman, whose child was sleeping on the first floor, drove Mota away. The Hopkinton woman, whom neighbors said has also moved away, could not be reached for comment.

A former neighbor said the woman was considered a hero by other women who lived in the condo complex. "She was our hero for doing what she did," said the neighbor, who asked not to be identified by name. "To have something like that happen was really enraging."

For four years, police failed to find any suspects despite intense publicity about the case, including billboards with an artist's sketch of the suspect.

Mota arrived in the United States from Brazil in 2001 on a visitor's visa, according to a spokeswoman for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is now investigating.

He has been working as a translator at a Delran, N.J., tax preparation company, New Jersey officials said, and said in court that he will hire his own lawyer.

According to authorities in both states, Mota was identified as the suspected serial rapist through persistent police work and forensics. Final tests are being done on whether Mota matches a DNA profile of the rapist in both states, authorities said.

The key break came as New Jersey detectives were trying to identify the man who raped a woman in Moorestown, N.J., on Sept. 24, 2005.

Police drew up a list of all drivers with Massachusetts plates stopped in Burlington County between 1999 and 2007, hoping to find a link between the driver and the two states, said Jack Smith, spokesman for Burlington County prosecutor Robert D. Bernardi.

They discovered that Mota was stopped on Feb. 17, 2005 in Delanco, where he was driving a car with Massachusetts plates but did not have a driver's license. That discovery made Mota a potential suspect, but there was no evidence linking him to the rape.

In January 2006, police in both states realized they were looking for the same man when a DNA profile on a national DNA database matched.

But they did not have a name for their suspect. That finally came last week when a fingerprint recovered by Hopkinton police in 2003 was matched to Mota's, who had been arrested on a domestic violence charge in Delran, N.J., last November, authorities said.

Smith said Mota was arrested Friday night as he left a Cherry Hill, N.J., restaurant.

"He was on a date," Smith said.

John R. Ellement can be reached at ellement@globe.com.