http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070716/NEWS01/70716020/1004/livingSerial rape suspect arrested in Burlco
MARCELO MOTA
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Monday, July 16, 2007
By CAROL COMEGNO
Courier-Post Staff
An illegal alien described by Burlington County authorities as a serial rapist has been arrested and charged with five separate crimes in Moorestown and Massachusetts since 2003.
The arrest of Marcelo G. Mota, 28, of Tenby Chase Drive, Delran, was announced Monday by Burlington County Prosecutor Robert Bernardi.
Mota, whom Bernardi said is a Brazilian national living in the United States illegally, is charged with aggravated sexual assault and burglary in the rape of a woman in the Laurel Creek development in Moorestown on Sept. 24, 2005. He is also charged with the burglary of another woman's home in the same development two days alter.
Mota is also charged with three rapes in Massachusetts in 2003 that helped lead investigators in Burlington County to Mota through fingerprints and DNA.
"I would characterize him as a serial rapist," Bernardi said, saying the suspect engaged in random and brazen attacks on women, who "literally found him standing over their beds."
He said Mota was in the country legally until 2001 when his visa expired and that recently he had been working as a translator at a tax preparation agency in the area.
Bernardi said Mota was arrested Friday night on a fugitive warrant from Massachusetts as a result of fingerprint matches and collection of DNA evidence with Burlington County. He said Mota was leaving a Cherry Hill restaurant on Haddonfield-Berlin Road in Cherry Hill at the time of his arrest, which he said occurred without incident.
The prosecutor said Burlington County investigators were able to identify Mota as the suspect in late June by using several data bases, including records of motor vehicle stops in New Jersey. He said Mota was stopped for a traffic violation by police in Delanco in 2005.
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