Suspect accused of other crimes

SARATOGA SPRINGS -- The man accused of trying to kidnap a Saratoga Springs High School senior Monday as she walked through a parking lot to her car is awaiting trial in his Connecticut hometown for a alleged rape/kidnapping in 1993 and a separate alleged attempted sexual assault on one of his co-workers in 2004.

John F. Regan, 48, of Waterbury, Conn., was free on $350,000 bail before his arrest Monday night.

After his arrest in the 2004 case, police working on a hunch collected a DNA sample and compared it with one from the 1993 case. They matched.

Based on this background, Saratoga County District Attorney James A. Murphy III argued to have Regan held in the Saratoga County Jail without bail, which is being done.

Regan is accused of binding and raping a prominent Waterbury businesswoman Sept. 11, 1993. According to police and prosecutors there, Regan knew the woman's husband was in Colorado, the first time he'd been gone in years. Regan had been to a bachelor party that night, one the victim's husband would have attended had he been in town.

Police in Waterbury said Regan cut the phone line before entering the home and going to the woman's bedroom. He was wearing a mask.

'She had no idea who he was,' Murphy said.

Police said he bound the woman and covered her mouth, then covered her face with a pillowcase. Then he raped her.

'Her children were in the next room,' Murphy said.

According to published reports, the Waterbury Police initially botched the case, to the point of accusing the woman of fabricating the entire incident. She sued the Waterbury Police Department and was awarded $190,000 in 2001.

But police did do something right. They collected evidence from the victim that night.

Famous forensic pathologist Dr. Henry Lee, then head of Connecticut's crime lab, saw to it that the evidence was re-examined, and he testified in the 2001 civil trial. It was that sample that would prove pivotal in Regan's arrest.

Then, in 2004, Waterbury police received a report of an attempted rape. Police said that Regan offered to give a 21-year-old co-worker a ride home in July 2004. On the way, he told her he had to check on his vacationing father's home. Once he got her inside, he tried to rape her, police said.

She escaped from him, Waterbury Police Sgt. Chris Corbett said.

According to published reports, the victim was able to contact her boyfriend, who took her to police. Waterbury's acting police chief, Neil O'Leary, remembered the DNA evidence from the 1993 case.

'The DNA matched,' prosecuting attorney John Connelly said Tuesday by phone.

He couldn't charge Regan with sexual assault in the 1993 case because the statute of limitations ran out years ago.

Connelly, the state's attorney for Waterbury, said he's been talking with Murphy and plans to ask a court in Connecticut today to increase Regan's bail.

Three detectives from the Waterbury police department were in Saratoga Springs Tuesday helping out, Sgt. Corbett said.

'We know him; we have all the information,' he said. 'Your police called us Monday night.'

According to Connecticut media, police there are also looking at Regan in another incident.

Murphy said he has no intention of Regan ever being freed on bail. He said he hopes that Regan, if convicted, serves his sentences consecutively in New York and Connecticut.

Regan could get up to 25 years in Connecticut prison and up to 15 years in New York prison if convicted.

His lawyers in the 2004 case declined comment. His lawyers in the 1993 case didn't respond to calls for comment.

Saratoga Springs Schools Superintendent John MacFadden's face froze Tuesday as he heard Murphy detail the allegations in Regan's past.

'It certainly shows the seriousness of the situation,' MacFadden said. 'There are bad people everywhere.'

Regan, son of a dentist, is from a prominent family in Waterbury. A school there is named for his grandfather.

Waterbury is a city of about 190,000 about an hour southeast of Hartford.