Serial rapist who terrorized Queens in 1990s may have more victims: NYPD

An alleged serial rapist who blazed a trail of terror in Queens in the 1990s, and was recently arrested in Georgia decades later, may have even more victims that police are unaware of. On Friday, cops released an image of the man in his youth, alongside his current photo, in the hope that it might prompt them to come forward.

Michael Benjamin, 57, was arrested Thursday by the Special Victims DNA Cold Case Squad and accused of raping five women, some at gunpoint, between 1995 and 1997 in southeast Queens. Benjamin, who lived in Georgia, was linked to several rape cases opened by investigators using advances in forensic technology, police and prosecutors said.

Benjamin, who looks almost like his 1990s photo except for a few extra wrinkles on his face and gray beard, as well as his glasses, is also charged with multiple counts of burglary.

In what appeared to be a typical modus operandi, the suspect in these cases would often break into his victims’ homes through a window early in the morning and rape them, then flee with cash and other valuables, according to prosecutors.

On July 24, 1995, Benjamin allegedly raped a 23-year-old woman after breaking into her home near 113th Street. and 194th Street, prosecutors said. In another attack, on September 15, 1996, he allegedly forced a 21-year-old woman into her home at gunpoint and raped her in the hallway after ordering her husband to lie face down on the floor, while threatening to kill their baby.

Police also believe Benjamin is responsible for six other rapes in Laurelton reported by the Daily News in 1992, but the statute of limitations on those attacks expired before enough evidence was gathered to pre-charge Benjamin, sources said.

All of these attacks took place between 1:30 a.m. and 5 a.m., with the rapist entering each victim’s home through a window.

The victims were aged 21 to 42. The last of them, then aged 41, was raped a second time on August 7, 1992 – almost a year after she was the attacker’s first victim on August 22, 1991. “I told you I would come back,” the man told her in an icy tone after the second rape, she told police, The News reported.

DNA from one of the crime scenes was pre-indicted as that of John Doe in 2005 — a move prosecutors took to prevent the statute of limitations from running out until police could determine the identity of the suspect.

That break came last year, when a fingerprint from one of the crime scenes was retested using new technology. The print matched Benjamin, who had pleaded guilty to attempted rape in 1995 – a month before his alleged rape spree – after being arrested for repeatedly raping a 12-year-old girl.

After the fingerprint match, Georgia investigators extracted Benjamin’s DNA from a cup he had used and discarded inside the Rockdale County Sheriff’s Office, which matched genetic residue left at Queens crime scenes that had been stored as evidence, sources said.

Benjamin’s next appearance will be on December 5. If convicted, he faces 25 years in prison.

Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will remain confidential.