Unveiling New Leads: NYPD Investigates Potential Victims of 1990s Queens Serial Rapist

A man suspected of being a serial rapist, who instilled fear across Queens in the 1990s, has been apprehended in Georgia after evading capture for decades. Authorities are now calling for any additional victims to come forward, releasing images from both his youth and present day in an effort to jog memories.

Michael Benjamin, 57, was taken into custody on Thursday by the Special Victims DNA Cold Case Squad. He faces charges related to the rape of five women, some of whom were assaulted at gunpoint, between 1995 and 1997 in southeast Queens. Investigators were able to connect Benjamin to these unsolved cases through new forensic technology, according to police and prosecutors.

Despite the passage of time, Benjamin’s appearance remains strikingly similar to his earlier mugshot, though he now sports a few more wrinkles, a graying beard, and glasses. In addition to the rape charges, he is also accused of multiple burglaries.

Benjamin’s alleged pattern involved breaking into victims’ homes through windows during the early morning hours to commit rape, before stealing money and valuables, prosecutors revealed.

One of the attacks reportedly occurred on July 24, 1995, when Benjamin allegedly entered a home near 113th Road and 194th Street and raped a 23-year-old woman. Another incident on September 15, 1996, involved him allegedly forcing a 21-year-old woman into her home at gunpoint, raping her in the hallway after making her husband lie facedown and threatening their baby’s life.

Authorities suspect Benjamin might be linked to six additional rapes in Laurelton reported by the Daily News in 1992. However, the statute of limitations for those incidents expired before sufficient evidence could be accumulated to formally charge him, according to sources.

All of those attacks occurred between 1:30 a.m. and 5 a.m., with the rapist getting into each victim’s home through a window.

The victims ranged in age from 21 to 42. The last one of them, then 41, was raped for a second time on Aug. 7, 1992 — nearly a year after she was the attacker’s first victim on Aug. 22, 1991.
“I told you I’d be back,” the man chillingly told her after the second rape, she told police, The News reported.

DNA from one of the crime scenes was pre-indicted as a John Doe in 2005 — a move by prosecutors to prevent the statute of limitations from expiring until police could figure out the suspect’s identity.

That break came last year, when a fingerprint from one of the crime scenes was retested using new technology. The print was a match for Benjamin, who 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, investigators in Georgia lifted Benjamin’s DNA from a cup he used and had discarded inside the Rockdale County Sheriff’s Office, which matched genetic residue left at the Queens crime scenes that had been stored as evidence, sources said.

Benjamin’s next court appearance is Dec. 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 be kept confidential.