Rape suspect linked to assault in 2000

Associated Press

CLEVELAND

A Cleveland man was indicted Friday in the rapes of three women — two reported in the last month and one in 2000.

Charges in the indictment of James Daniel III, 33, include rape, kidnapping, aggravated robbery and felonious assault. He was arrested Sept. 18 after DNA tests linked him to the rape of a 46-year-old woman attacked while jogging Sept. 2 in Cleveland, police said.

Authorities have said DNA testing also has linked Daniel to an Aug. 30 rape of a woman walking along on a street in suburban Lakewood and to a rape and home invasion in February 2000 in Cleveland.

Court records do not indicate that Daniel has been assigned an attorney. He is being held on a $750,000 bond.

Daniel has a long criminal record but no previous sex-offense-related charges. He was sentenced to four years in prison in 2010 on a robbery conviction. He was released from prison March 31.

A neighborhood security camera recorded a portion of the recent Cleveland assault. Police made the disturbing recording public with the victim’s permission in the hope of finding her assailant. The video showed a man sprinting to catch up with the woman as she jogged, the assailant grabbing and beating her and then forcing her behind an apartment building.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported Thursday that investigators learned in May that Daniel’s DNA had been linked to the 2000 rape. A Cuyahoga County prosecutor told the newspaper that a Cleveland sex crimes investigator had contacted Daniel’s parole officer to obtain a DNA sample from him to confirm the match.

About a dozen investigators assigned to Cuyahoga County’s DNA Cold Case Task Force are working on more than 1,000 cases for which rape test kits have indicated the presence of DNA.

The task force was created in 2013 after a series of Plain Dealer reports first published in 2009 that detailed how there were 4,000 rape test kits in the Cleveland police evidence room that had not been checked for the presence of DNA.