Ohio serial rapist gets 135 years in prison

CLEVELAND (AP) — A man who was linked to seven Cleveland-area rapes when authorities reopened hundreds of previously unsolved rape cases has been sentenced to up to 135 years in prison.

The sentence by a judge in Cuyahoga County on Wednesday means 69-year-old Robert Green likely will never get out of prison. He was indicted in five of the cases in November and two more in May. He pleaded guilty.

The Plain Dealer newspaper reports that the rapes occurred over nearly a decade. They were unsolved until Cleveland police began sending about 4,000 untested rape kits to a state lab for testing.

DNA found in the rape kits first linked five of the rape cases together. Green was initially linked through an address provided by a victim.