Paul Bass Photo
Sketch artist Elizabeth Williams after the arraignment.
As the alleged “East Coast Rapist” hid his eyes behind shades and bent his head in court, the cops tried to keep his mug shot off TV in the hopes of solving three more assaults.
The alleged multiple-state serial rapist showed up in the Elm Street courthouse Monday morning to be arraigned on charges that he sexually assaulted a woman in 2007 while her baby slept in the same room. Authorities believe, based on a DNA match, that the 39-year-old New Haven man committed at least 17 sexual crimes in 12 states.
The defendant, Aaron Thomas, appeared before Judge Bruce Thompson in Courtroom B in a white short-sleeved T‑shirt, khaki pants, paper on his feet, and a black baseball cap and sunglasses — the latter feature an unusual accessory for a courthouse appearance. The glasses stayed on throughout the appearance. He kept his head down. His hands were cuffed behind his back. He said nothing as Thompson ordered Thomas held on two separate cash bonds totaling $1.5 million and a prosecutor revealed that he “spontaneously” admitted in lock-up to having a “Jekyll and Hyde’’ personality. (The Independent is publishing Thomas’s name because he has allegedly admitted to committing some of the sexual crimes of which he has been accused and is reportedly cooperating with authorities.)
Three sketch artists representing news outlets sat feet away from Thomas in the front row of seats on the courtroom’s Church Street side. But it was hard to get a good look at Thomas’s face.
Which was good news for New Haven police.
Police have tried to keep Thomas’s face out of the media. CNN filed a Freedom of Information request this weekend to get his mug shot. The cops turned CNN down.
That’s because they suspect Thomas committed three other sexual assaults in New Haven since 2007. But they don’t have DNA evidence from those crimes. They hope that the victims can pick Thomas’s face out of a photo line-up.
Having his mug spread across TV and the newspapers would jeopardize that identification, according to New Haven police spokesman Officer Joe Avery.
“We have a few ongoing investigations that have the same kind of m.o. with no DNA,” Avery said Monday. The department will eventually release the photo, he said. “I expect it’s going to be locked up for another couple of weeks.”
Avery noted that those three open cases are unrelated to a a serial rapist the department has been investigating in connection with five attacks over the past three years in the Newhallville neighborhood. DNA captured in that investigation does not match Thomas’s, Avery said.
Thomas’s lawyer told the New Haven Register that the sunglasses were an intentional choice; as with the cops, he didn’t want to prejudice potential eyewitnesses.
Legal — & Practical — Hurdles
The department’s quest to keep Thomas’s mug out of public view is a complicated one in the modern media age. The New Haven Register website published photos and a video clip of a shirtless Thomas being transported to the courthouse Monday morning. The shots showed his head down, so there was no clear view of his face.
Plus, prior to Friday’s arrest, the police had plastered composite sketches of the suspect—before his arrest, before they knew his name, and before they were sure what he looks like — on billboards up and down the East Coast seeking the public’s help.
Then there were the three sketch artists allowed to observe and draw the courtroom scene Monday. Again, because of Thomas’s get-up and posture, they too were afforded less than head-on views. (One of the artists, New York-based Elizabeth Williams, is pictured at the top of the story filling in her sketch for the Associated Press after the court hearing finished.)
The relevant provision under state law is Section 1 – 210 of the Freedom of Information Act. Subsection 3 allows for the withholding of law-enforcement records in the case of “information to be used in a prospective law enforcement action” if the release would “prejudice” the case.
The police would probably prevail in any court challenge to delaying release of the mug shot, said freedom of information (FOI) experts.
Staffer Tom Hennick of the State Freedom of Information Commission (FOIC) and Elia Alexiades, a local First Amendment lawyer, said FOI panels and judges tend to give police leeway when they argue that material needs to be withheld to protect an ongoing investigation.
In general, releasing a mug shot is definitely in the public interest, Alexiades argued. “It can cause additional victims to come forward,” he said. If a suspect is out on bail (unlike Thomas), “it gives people reasonable notice” about an alleged criminal in their midst.
“There’s a downside to it, too. People are innocent until proven guilty,” Alexiades said.
He noted that it has become harder to keep photos and other information about suspects out of the public eye. “Does the bad photo they got of him in the sally port [Monday morning] make the withholding of the mug shot moot? No,” Alexiades said, because of the lack of a full frontal view of the face.
He was asked whether the sketches can change the legal basis for challenging the withholding of the mug shot. “That all depends on context, what kind of information emerges from the mug shots,” he responded. “Once information is out there,” he said, “it’s out there.”
“Jekyll And Hyde”
The state did not grant permission for a pool photographer at Thomas’s brief appearance before Thompson.
Thompson set a $1 million bond for the suspect’s alleged rape of a New Haven woman in 2007. He set a second $500,000 cash bond on an extradition case from Virginia.
Thomas’s attorney, public defender Joe Lopez, did not object to the bail. He said his client is unemployed and indigent.
“He’s in no position to post bond whatsoever,” Lopez said.
Police said Thomas has been connected by DNA evidence to 12 sexual assaults between 1997 and 2009, including one in New Haven in 2007. The others took place in Maryland, Virginia, and Rhode Island. Police obtained a DNA sample of the suspect last week, retrieved from a cigarette butt. He has lived in New Haven for the past four years, according to Lopez.
In one 2009 Virginia case, he allegedly raped two teen-aged trick-or-treaters.
Prosecutor David Strollo told the judge in court that Thomas had made “spontaneous” declarations to a marshal in the court lock-up.
He told marshals that he has “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde multiple personalities when it came to women,” Strollo said.
He also said that Thomas asked police, “Why haven’t you picked me up sooner?” And, “What took you so long?”
He was arrested on Friday near his home in Westville. On Saturday, he tried to hang himself in his jail cell.
The case was continued to March 22.
A Tip From Maryland
An arrest warrant affidavit released by the court Monday detailed part of the New Haven case and the subsequent arrest.
Detective Kristen Cuddy, wrote the arrest warrant affidavit, that a then-27-year-old woman reported that a man came into her apartment through a living-room window at 1 a.m. on Jan. 10, 2007. He woke her up. Her then-1-year-old child “was asleep in her bedroom with her and the male threatened to kill the baby if she made any noise,” Cuddy wrote.
“The male forced the victim to remove her clothes and get on her knees. He then used Vaseline that was in the victim’s bedroom as a lubricant and put his penis inside her vagina and forced vaginal intercourse. After vaginal intercourse the male forced the victim to perform oral sex on him before again forcing vaginal intercourse. Throughout the assault the victim’s baby was present.”
Afterwards the woman called police and went to Yale-New Haven Hospital, “where a sexual assault kit was taken and sent to the forensic lab. The forensic lab was able to extract a DNA profile from the kit and upon putting into the national data base it was linked to numerous other sexual assaults along the East Coast,” Cuddy wrote.
Fast forward to last week, Feb. 28. A caller to a Prince George’s County hotline in Maryland identified Thomas as the rapist whom authorities had been seeking for years. Thomas was traced to New Haven. New Haven cop Steve Manware got the tip; along with members of the U.S. Marshals Connecticut Violent Crimes Fugitive Task Force, he went out in search of a DNA sample.
Manware and another officer showed up Thursday at the Elm Street courthouse, where Thomas was appearing on an unrelated charge involving theft of bicycle parts. The cops “observed him smoke a cigarette and discard the cigarette butt on the ground next to the bus stop.” Thomas walked away; Deputy Marshal Mike Novak collected the butt. The DNA matched. On Friday, authorities picked up Thomas.
No Luck
One woman who said she was the subject of an attempted assault in 2007 showed up in court Monday to watch the proceedings. She said she had hoped that Thomas would turn out to be the man who tried to attack her. She said the would-be assailant had broken into her house but that she had prevented the assault.
After getting a look at Thomas, she concluded he wasn’t the guy. She said the man in her incident had a Caribbean accent; according to one report Thomas does, too. That’s what brought the woman to the courtroom.
“I’ve got to get my life back,” she said afterward. “I don’t have a life. I’m scared every day.”