Thread: S. Jersey immigrant accused in serial rapes

S. Jersey immigrant accused in serial rapes
INQUIRER STAFF

Marcelo G. Mota An illegal immigrant from Brazil was arraigned in Burlington County today after a lengthy investigation linked his DNA to rapes in New Jersey and Massachusetts.
Authorities said Marcelo G. Mota, 28, of Tenby Chase Drive, Delran, was a serial rapist. He was charged in one rape and one attempted rape in Moorestown in September 2005. A warrant charges him as being a fugitive from Massachusetts, where police say a suspect they dubbed the "Metro West Rapist" attacked two women in 2003.

The Burlington County Prosecutor's Office said today that a key to the arrest was a national crime database of DNA. DNA evidence from one of the Moorestown assaults was submitted to the database, authorities said, and the database matched it with sex attacks in Westborough, Mass., in January 2006. That and other evidence led detectives to charge Mota.

He was arrested Friday at a Cherry Hill restaurant.

Mota was arraigned this afternoon in Superior Court in Mount Holly. He is being held on $1 million bail set by Superior Court Judge Ronald Bookbinder.

Authorities ask that anyone with information about Mota call the Burlington County Prosecutor's Major Crimes Unit at 609-265-5035 or the Secret Witness Hotline at 609-267-7667.

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N.J. gets first shot at MetroWest rape suspect
By Peter Reuell/ MetroWest Daily News
Wednesday, July 18, 2007 - Updated: 07:37 AM EST

Prosecutors and police yesterday said it could be months before Marcelo Mota, who is in New Jersey police custody, stands trial in Massachusetts.

Mota, believed by police to be the so-called MetroWest Rapist, responsible for two rapes in Westborough and an attack in Hopkinton in 2003, was arrested Friday outside a restaurant in New Jersey.

Law enforcement officials, however, said it could be some time before Mota sees the inside of a Bay State courtroom.

"New Jersey has him in custody," Middlesex District Attorney Gerard Leone said yesterday. "They will get the first shot at him in the criminal justice system. In the meantime, while he’s working his way through the...system in New Jersey, we intend to indict him, and then lodge warrants and detainers behind him in New Jersey."

That maneuver, Leone said, almost certainly ensures Mota will remain in the custody of police in either New Jersey or Massachusetts until he is tried in both states.

"The likelihood of his seeing the street is virtually certain not to happen," Leone said. "Not only is New Jersey holding him, but we...also have a second backstop."

Massachusetts authorities, however, are not the only ones interested in Mota.

Federal immigration officials believe Mota is an illegal immigrant from Brazil, and yesterday said they have already filed another detainer, asking he be transferred to federal custody once he is released from state custody.

"We do believe he is in the country illegally," said Paula Grenier, a public affairs officer for the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement’s Boston office.

Grenier said the department is continuing to investigate Mota’s immigration status, and may attempt to deport him, but will not start the process until after he is tried on the charges related to the alleged rapes.

"The removal process, in general, isn’t going to start until he’s in our custody," she said. "(That is) going to happen once he’s released from state custody."

Leone and others, though, want to make sure that does not happen until after Mota stands trial.

"Glitches have occurred before, where someone who is in state custody is sent to ICE and they start proceedings," Leone said. "Our present intent would be that he not go into ICE custody until he’s answered our charges in our system."

While it may be some time before Mota does answer those charges, police in the meantime say they will continue their investigation.

"We’ve still got a lot of work to do," Westborough Police Chief Alan Gordon said. "(This is) new to us, who the suspect was. Up until last week, we didn’t know who we were looking for."

Besides putting together a fuller profile of Mota, police also want to establish a clearer picture of where the alleged rapist lived, and investigate whether he may be connected to other crimes in the area.

"There’s a lot of legwork that’s got to be done now," Gordon added. "We’ve got to look back over almost four years."

Among the largest question still to be answered in the case: How did a man who bore an uncanny resemblance to the composite sketch circulated after the rapes in 2003 elude capture for nearly four years?

"That’s kind of what we felt, too," Gordon said yesterday. "We felt offers of cash rewards may have engendered some action, but he was (believed to be) an illegal alien. There may have been a close-knit group he hung with, and they may also have been illegal, and didn’t want to (come forward) themselves."



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bh.heraldinteractive.com: news.heraldinteractive.com: 0.071166:Wed, 18 Jul 2007 11:37:58 GMT
http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegio ... id=1012023

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Rape suspect had easy-to-get license

By LEO STRUPCZEWSKI
Courier-Post Staff


DELRAN
For Marcello Mota, getting a driver's license was easy.

The Delran resident made a cross-country trip to Washington state in 2006 and, within three days, had a valid license despite being an illegal immigrant. He did all of it by the book.

Until May, those who applied for a license in Washington didn't have to prove they lived in the state, said Brad Benfield, spokesman for the Washington State Department of Licensing. Applicants still don't have to prove they're in the country legally.

"That's just essentially a policy decision by our legislature," he said.

Mota, a 28-year-old Brazilian national living in this country illegally, was arrested Friday while leaving a restaurant in Cherry Hill while on a date. Called a "serial rapist" by officials, Mota is charged with raping a Moorestown woman in 2005 and a Massachusetts woman in August 2003. Charges from four other crimes in the Massachusetts communities of Westborough and Framingham are pending, officials said.

Mota is also charged with breaking into another Moorestown woman's home two days after the rape in 2005, officials said. In that incident, he fled when his would-be victim screamed.

Assistant Burlington County Prosecutor Kevin Morgan told Superior Court Judge Patricia LeBon that Mota confessed to the crimes. He is being held on $1 million bail.

Jack Smith, spokesman for the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office, said an investigation into unsolved rapes in the area is continuing. There were no updates in those cases Tuesday.

Mota, whose visa expired in 2001, was able to skirt restrictions. And, despite being arrested on domestic violence charges in 2006 in Burlington County, Mota never seemed to be questioned on his immigration status. He lived and worked in Delran, owned a car registered in Pennsylvania and had a license from Washington.

Benfield said Mota would have been able to obtain a Washington state license by merely proving his identity and lying about his residency. It's unclear how Mota was able to register his car in Pennsylvania. The state's Department of Transportation's Web site indicated that a Pennsylvania driver's license or another form of photo identification with a Pennsylvania address is needed to register a car.

Cathleen Lewis, a spokesman with the New Jersey Department of Motor Vehicles, said Mota had been stopped twice since 2005 for traffic violations. In the first incident, he was pulled over for disregarding a stop sign. The second incident occurred in August 2006 when he failed to yield to a pedestrian. He also received a ticket then for being an unlicensed driver, Lewis said.

Neither stop showed Mota was an illegal immigrant, Lewis said.

If Mota had a New Jersey license, his license would have become invalid when the visa expired. If he were pulled over after that time, Lewis said normal court procedures would be able to reveal Mota's illegal status.

In 2006, Mota was charged with a domestic violence incident. Smith said details of that incident are sealed because of the nature of the case.

Adam Puharic, a spokesman for Immigrant and Customs Enforcement, said the agency had no records of any law enforcement agency requesting information on Mota.

Still, Puharic said, ICE was prepared to file charges against Mota, who lived in Tenby Chase Apartments, for his immigration status when it learned that the Burlington Country Prosecutor's Office was investigating him for the rape charges. The agency has deferred to the prosecutor's office, Puharic said, but did file a detainer against Mota. That means Mota will be transferred to ICE custody if he is able to post his $1 million bail, Puharic said.

The issue of immigration status was magnified in May when it was revealed that Fort Dix terror suspects Eljvir, Dritan and Shain Duka, all brothers, had been pulled over a combined 45 times for driving violations in New Jersey between 1997 and May 2006.

None of the stops raised a flag about immigration status.

At the time, officials said the most police can do when they suspect a person is an illegal immigrant is contact immigration enforcement.

Nick Pipitone contributed to this report. Reach Leo Strupczewski at (856) 317-7828 or lstrupczewski@courierpostonline.com
Published: July 18. 2007 3:10AM
http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/p ... 006/news01

Just think, if the Scamnesty bill had passed he would probably be a citizen by now!

By MELISSA HAYES
Burlington County Times

A judge denied a lawyer's request yesterday to reduce bail for a 28-year-old Brazilian national charged with a series of sexual assaults and attacks in Moorestown and Massachusetts.

Marcelo G. Mota, who was living as an illegal alien in Delran, is charged with aggravated sexual assault and burglary in the Moorestown cases and with being a fugitive from justice in Massachusetts. Mota is being held on $500,000 bail in Burlington County and $500,000 bail in Massachusetts.

Assistant Burlington County Prosecutor Kathleen Mears Grahn said there are detainers from three jurisdictions in two different counties in Massachusetts and a federal detainer from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Mota's attorney, Stephen Raymond, argued bail is set higher than state guidelines for aggravated assault, which recommend $150,000 to $300,000.

“I would urge the court to follow the bail guidelines,â€

Delran man faces burglary, assault charges

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

MOUNT HOLLY

A Burlington County grand jury has indicted a Delran man on multiple charges stemming from a pair of burglaries and sexual assaults in Moorestown.

Marcelo G. Mota, 28, of Tenby Chase Drive, is charged with aggravated sexual assault, burglary, making terroristic threats and other charges under a 9-count indictment, said the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office.

Authorities contend Mota entered two homes in the Laurel Creek development on separate nights in September 2005. He sexually assaulted a woman in the first home, but fled after a resident screamed during the second break-in, officials said.

DNA evidence taken from the first crime scene was matched through a national database with two unsolved sexual assaults in the Boston suburb of Westborough, Mass., during the summer of 2003.

An investigation led to the arrest of Mota, an illegal alien from Brazil, as he left a Cherry Hill restaurant in July of this year, officials said. He is being held in lieu of $500,000 bail for the Moorestown charges and faces an identical bail demand for the Massachusetts charges, officials said.

http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/p ... /712190413