ONCE A RAPIST ALWAYS A RAPIST

Rapist of Top Gun actress convicted in new assault

AP--A man convicted of raping "Top Gun" actress Kelly McGillis in 1982 was found guilty on Monday of raping and robbing two other women in 1996 in their New York apartment.


After deliberating four hours, a New York state court jury convicted Leroy Johnson, Jr., 39, of eight counts of robbery, burglary, sodomy and rape. He faces up to 25 years in prison on each of the rape counts.


Johnson was accused of forcing his way into the women's home on November 18, 1996, blindfolding them, attacking them at knifepoint and threatening to kill them if they reported him. During the attack, Johnson told the women, "I know what I'm doing is wrong; my mother raised me better than this," one of the victims testified.


Johnson showed no emotion as the jury verdict. His two young victims, roommates when the crime occurred, wept but said nothing as they left the courtroom. Jurors were not told of Johnson's conviction for raping McGillis because the crime occurred more than 10 years ago.


Johnson was 15 when, authorities said, he ambushed McGillis, then an acting student, in her New York apartment. He and an accomplice attacked her and her roommate at knifepoint. Johnson was sent to a state juvenile facility, escaped, and later served time in prison. He was released in 1991 but returned to prison again in an unrelated case two years later.


McGillis went on to speak publicly about her attack. In an interview she gave while filming "The Accused," in which she played a district attorney prosecuting an accused rapist, McGillis said she wanted the role because of her ordeal. Prosecutor Martha Bashford told jurors in the more recent case that Johnson took everything on which he might have left a DNA sample including the bed sheets, a condom, a towel and the victims' underwear. But Johnson missed a spot of semen left on the back of one of the victims and forensic experts last year were able to match Johnson's DNA to the semen. Defense attorney Bryan Konoski had argued that the DNA samples had been tampered with and were "not pure."