DNA puts man behind bars in '97 rape

It took almost 10 years.

But, as the result of a hit in a DNA databank, a Long Island man has been sentenced to 23 years in prison for a knife-point rape in Queens Village that occurred in 1997.

Gregory Stovall, 38, of 32 Gray Ave., Medford, was sentenced on first-degree rape charges Monday by Justice Robert C. Kohm in Queens Supreme Court. Stovall pleaded guilty on Feb. 5, after his DNA profile had been entered into the National DNA Databank by law enforcement authorities in Virginia.

"The sentence imposed today severely punishes the defendant for his brutal sexual assault and removes him from stepping foot on our streets for many years to come," Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said in a prepared statement released Monday. "The defendant was ultimately done in by his own DNA."

According to the charges, Stovall entered the Queens Village home of the then-34-year-old victim between 6 and 7 p.m. on Dec. 11, 1997, then waited for her to come home from work.

When she entered the home, Stovall, wearing a mask, lunged at her, held a knife to her throat and told her: "Don't do anything stupid. ... You want me to cut your head off?"

When the woman tried to escape, authorities said, Stovall tackled her in the driveway, dragged her back inside the house, then took her to the basement, blindfolded her, bound her feet, cut off her clothing and raped her.

He fled the scene with her car and other items -- including a mink coat, a VCR, a fax machine and even some of her Christmas presents.

For years after the attack, the DNA collected in a sexual assault evidence kit led police nowhere. Then Stovall was charged in a burglary in Virginia in September 2005, authorities said. When his DNA sample was entered into the national databank, officials found a match to the rape evidence in Queens.