DNA ‘cold hit’ defendant sentenced for 1996 rape and armed robbery

Queens – A man apprehended as a result of a DNA sample that he had been required to provide in an unrelated drug case has been sentenced to up to 45 years in prison for the 1996 violent attack of a 30-year-old Richmond Hill beauty salon employee whom he raped and robbed.

District Attorney Richard Brown identified the defendant as Alex Jackson, 38, who is presently serving a 2½ to five year prison term at the Riverview Correctional Facility in Ogdensburg, New York.

He was convicted earlier this month of first-degree rape, second-degree burglary and first-degree robbery. Queens Supreme Court Justice Richard Buchter, who presided at the two-week jury trial, imposed the sentence of 22½ - 45 years in prison.

District Attorney Brown said that, according to the trial testimony, at about 4 p.m. on April 1, 1996, Jackson forced his way into the Cedeño Hair Salon, located at 88-02 Van Wyck Expressway in Richmond Hill, after store hours. He pulled a handgun and forced the store’s lone occupant - a 30-year-old female employee - into the bathroom where he raped and robbed her of $150 in cash. Jackson warned the victim that if she told anyone he would come back the next day. Before fleeing on foot, he the victim by leaving behind a piece of paper on which he had scribbled a false name and phone number and saying, “If you like me, you can call me.”

The District Attorney said the victim was treated at a local hospital where medical personnel prepared a sexual assault evidence kit, which included DNA evidence recovered from the victim. When Jackson was recently convicted of felony sale of a controlled substance in Manhattan, a DNA sample was taken by New York law enforcement officials. That sample was entered into the National DNA database known as CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) and positively matched the rape kit DNA collected in the Richmond Hill case.