A California man who tried to blame his twin brother for the rapes of a 9-year-old girl and a jogger was sentenced to 140 years to life this week in attacks that happened decades ago, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said.
Genealogy technology led investigators to Kevin Konther, the man who was convicted and sentenced, and his twin brother in 2019 in connection with the sexual assaults in 1995 and 1998, the district attorney’s office said in a statement.
“Identical twins share the same DNA, but conversations covertly recorded between the two brothers following their arrests revealed multiple incriminating statements made by Kevin Konther, including admissions that he carried out the crimes,” the office said in February when he was convicted.
The twin brother has not been charged. The district attorney’s office said that in the recorded conversations, he expressed shock at the allegations against his brother.
A judge on Monday sentenced Konther, 58, to 140 years to life in prison, the maximum allowed, prosecutors said.
A jury convicted Konther in February of two counts of forcible rape and other charges, one of which dealt with the molestation of a third victim, the 12-year-old daughter of a former girlfriend, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Konther in 1995 raped a 9-year-old girl at knifepoint as she walked home in Lake Forest, a city in Orange County southeast of Irvine, the district attorney’s office said.
In 1998, he jumped out of some bushes and attacked and raped a 32-year-old woman as she jogged in Mission Viejo, the office said.
The attorney who represented Konther did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday afternoon.
