Using DOJ Grant to Bronx DA, New DNA Technology Employed

That Led to Suspect in Sex Assaults from 2000, 2001

Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and New York City Police Commissioner Edward A. Caban today announced that a Florida man has been charged in separate indictments for raping a woman in the Bronx and a woman in Manhattan two decades ago, after new DNA technology linked him to the brutal attacks. These are the first sexual assault cases in the state solved with Investigative Genetic Genealogy.

District Attorney Clark said, “After all these years, we are finally providing justice for two women who survived terrifying attacks. Our Bronx victim said she had been waiting more than 20 years to hear that her alleged rapist was caught. I thank the Manhattan DA’s Office and the NYPD, and my Forensic Science Unit for their relentless efforts for these women. Investigative Genetic Genealogy will help solve all sorts of cold cases, not limited to murders, and hold perpetrators accountable. It will also help to name our unidentified homicide victims so their relatives can have closure.”

District Attorney Bragg said, “DNA is a powerful tool to solve cold cases and secure justice for survivors even decades after a crime takes place.  Alongside our partners in law enforcement, we never give up on seeking accountability – particularly for such horrific and violent allegations as these. I thank the Bronx D.A.’s Office and the NYPD, as well as the prosecutors in my office, for pursuing answers with such determination while centering survivors throughout.”

 Commissioner Caban, “Investigations may grow colder with the passage of time, but these indictments prove that the best detectives in the world do not ever forget victims and the justice rightfully owed to them. I commend and thank for their skilled dedication to this critical work our NYPD forensic genetic genealogist, investigators, and criminologists, as well as New York City’s chief medical examiner and everyone involved in these cases from the Manhattan and Bronx district attorneys’ offices.”

 According to court documents and statements made on the record in court, on May 23, 2000, a 27-year-old woman came home to her Midtown apartment and discovered a man inside. He allegedly forced her into her bathroom, tied her arms and feet with a wire hanger, and raped her. A DNA profile developed from evidence in the survivor’s subsequent rape kit was indicted in 2005 by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office as “John Doe.”

According to the investigation, on a day in December 2001, the defendant allegedly entered the 21-year-old victim’s apartment in the Bronx while she was sleeping. He allegedly covered the victim’s face and bound her with a wire hanger and raped her. The survivor’s rape kit generated a donor profile, which matched the donor profile from the  Manhattan case.

A three-year, $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance to the Bronx District Attorney’s Office to solve cold cases was used to fund Investigative Genetic Genealogy. This entails  taking crime scene evidence and sending it to a private laboratory to develop a profile which is used to search for consumer DNA databases for genetic relatives who consented to assist law enforcement. Using the suspect’s DNA found at the scenes, a family tree was developed by NYPD’s Forensic Laboratory, and those results helped identify the defendant as Jancys Santiago, 48.

Santiago, formerly of the Bronx and currently of Groveland, Fla,  was extradited from Florida and arraigned on the “John Doe” indictment on Thursday, November 9, 2023, in Manhattan Supreme Court. He was remanded.

Assistant Manhattan District Attorneys Maxine Rosenthal, Senior Counsel to the Special Victims Division, Melissa Mourges, Special Assistant District Attorney, and Coleen Balbert, Chief of the Forensic Sciences/Cold Case Unit, are handling the prosecution of the Manhattan  case.

Santiago  was arraigned on November 15, 2023, on first-degree Rape before Bronx Supreme Court Justice Kim Parker. On December 12, 2023, bail was set at $1 million cash and $2.5 million bond.

The case is being prosecuted by Cold Case Assistant District Attorney Gabrielle Martin-Klein of the Forensic Science Unit under the supervision of David Slott, Chief of the Forensic Science Unit, and under the overall supervision of Nicole Ortsman-Dauer, Deputy Chief of the Strategic Innovations Division and Kerry Chicon, Chief of the Strategic Innovations Division.

DA Clark thanked BXDA Forensics Analysts Sonia Ahmad and Lindsay Cooper,  DNA Specialist Nana Lamouse`-Welch and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner’s DNA Liaison Roberta Graham for their work on the case, as well as Senior Sexual Assault Advocate Jeannette Gambaro  and Evelyn Trinidad-Armenia, Acting Director of Children and Family Services, both of the BXDA Crime Victims Assistance Bureau, for their assistance. District Attorney Clark thanked David Olson, Deputy Director, Strategic Planning and Analytics Unit, and Stephanie Rosas-Garcia, Planning Analyst,  for their assistance in securing the grant.

DA Clark thanked Detective James Barrenger of the NYPD Special Victims Division DNA Cold Case Squad, for his extensive work on the investigation,.

DA Clark thanked the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, and the University of Central Florida Police Department for their assistance.

An indictment is an accusatory instrument and not proof of a defendant’s guilt.