Queens

NYC Livery Driver Charged With 1996 Rape of Passenger: DA

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What to Know

  • A man who worked as a livery driver in 1996 has been charged with raping a passenger 25 years ago, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced Thursday.
  • Danny Stewart, 58 and of Manhattan, was indicted by a grand jury and arraigned in Queens Supreme Court on a charge of rape in the first degree for the 1996 rape of a female passenger.
  • Stewart – a livery driver at the time – allegedly picked up the victim from her workplace in Jamaica and sexually assaulted her in his car after displaying what appeared to be a gun.

A man who worked as a livery driver in 1996 has been charged with raping a passenger 25 years ago, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced Thursday.

Danny Stewart, 58 and of Manhattan, was indicted by a grand jury and arraigned in Queens Supreme Court on a charge of rape in the first degree for the 1996 rape of a female passenger. Stewart – a livery driver at the time – allegedly picked up the victim from her workplace in Jamaica and sexually assaulted her in his car after displaying what appeared to be a gun.

According to the charges, on Sept. 15, 1996 at approximately 4 a.m., the then-23-year-old victim was on her way home after back-to-back shifts at two restaurants, when she flagged down a livery cab in the vicinity of Parsons and Archer Avenues.

As the vehicle approached her residence, she attempted to exit the car, but Stewart allegedly refused to let her out, driving instead to a dark parking lot nearby, displaying what appeared to be a firearm, choking the woman and then raping her, according to the district attorney's office.

Stewart allegedly allowed her to exit the vehicle after the assault, it was then that the woman walked home and then went to the hospital where a sexual assault evidence kit was collected but it was not immediately tested for DNA since no DNA databank existed at the time.

In 2000, the New York State criminal DNA databank system was launched, and New York City was then able to test rape kits in its possession, including the woman's in this case, and a male DNA profile was subsequently produced. According to the district attorney's office, in the fall of 2020, Stewart, was swabbed for his DNA and the state's DNA databank generated a match to the woman’s rape kit, which then alerted the NYPD and the Queens District Attorney's Office.

“The break in this 25-year-old cold case, the oldest sexual assault case ever prosecuted in Queens County, came from a DNA match that had been previously unattainable," Katz said in a statement. "The victim in this case was just attempting to go home after work, but unfortunately met up with this alleged predator, who at long last faces prosecution for this crime. Justice is not always immediate, but a victim’s suffering deserves closure.”

Stewart is due back in court on June 15. If convicted, the defendant faces 12 1/2 to 25 years in prison.

Attorney information for the accused was not immediately known.

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