RAPE ‘SHOPPER’ (Teen gets 25 years for W. Side attacks)

Calvin Benjamin, a 16 year old prowler, was sentenced to 25 years prison, the maximum, for the teen's yearlong trail of rape and robbery on the Upper West Side and Lower East Side.  He also has been linked to last month's NYU rapist. Benjamin, of 110 W. 144th St., was only 15 when he began his wave of terror on female victims December 18, 2000. He robbed two women in an Upper West Side building lobby. His is suspected in the sexual assault of a 29 year old woman on February 20, 2001. Cops say just 15 minutes later, he robbed and beat up another woman just down the block, leaving her with missing teeth. Benjamin was linked by DNA to a rape and robbery on Rivington Street in lower Manhattan last October 22. Cops believe his accomplice in that rape was Andre Caperna, the man arrested last month for two rape-robberies of NYU students. Caperna, 20, is also thought to be the second rapist in the Feb. 20 attack and has not been charged in either of those attacks. Since March 17, he has been in jail charged with raping and robbing two NYU students March 10 and March 16 and robbing a third woman that same week. Benjamin was charged with two counts of first-degree rape, three counts of sodomy and two counts of robbery, with more charges pending.

(New York)