A District man already convicted for a 2001 felony sex offense was sentenced to 15 years to life for abducting and raping a teenager in 2000, authorities announced Monday. The victim, now in her 20s, repeatedly dwells on the attack, and suffers from constant fear, anxiety and anger, U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen Jr. said in a sentencing memo.
“In that one night, [Gibson] took so much away of what was good and ordinary in the life of 16-year-old,” Machen said.
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Lawrence Gibson, 42, had been arrested for four other sexual assaults on women. He was convicted in 2001 for a felony sex offense in which he snuck into a home and stabbed a woman in the neck, prosecutors said.
Last year, new information and DNA evidence linked Gibson to the earlier attack on the 16-year-old.
Authorities said the Feb. 21, 2000, attack happened around 10:30 p.m. when the girl was walking along the 5000 block of Benning Road SE toward a friend’s house. Gibson pulled up in his car and asked where she was going, they said.
The girl, who did not know Gibson, replied, “Same place I was going before you stopped me.”
She continued walking, and Gibson drove around and approached her again in the 4900 block of Benning Road. This time, Gibson grabbed the teenager by her hair, and held what the girl believed to be a gun to her head, forcing her into his car, authorities said.
Gibson got into the car, struck her in the face, and drove her a short way to a parking lot behind the 5400 block of Call Place SE, they said.
As the girl prayed aloud for help, Gibson replied, “God can’t help you.”
Gibson raped her, then demanded that she perform oral sex on him, she testified. The girl told him that he would have to kill her first.
Gibson threw the girl out of the car and sped off. She was found wandering and muttering to herself, “How could this have happened? How could he have done that to me?”
D.C. police investigated the case, but were unable to make an arrest until they received a tip in March 2011 that led them to Gibson. A DNA sample taken from Gibson linked him to the 2000 rape.
