WASHINGTON — A convicted sex offender is now facing life in prison after he was convicted Tuesday of raping a woman in 2010.
Cardell Torney, 47, of D.C., was found guilty of first-degree sexual abuse while armed with exaggerating circumstances, as well as kidnapping while armed, in the attack on a woman near her home on 12th Street in Northwest, near the U Street corridor.
D.C. U.S. Attorney Jesse K. Liu’s office said in a statement that the woman was walking home from a club on U Street in the predawn hours of Dec. 12, 2010, and was about to unlock her door when Torney stuck a sharp object into her back and demanded money.
She said she had no money but offered her credit cards, the prosecutors said. Torney instead forced her into a neighbor’s yard and raped her.
DNA evidence linked Torney to the assault, and he was arrested in 2012. He has been in custody ever since, the prosecutors said.
The attack came about a month after Torney was released from prison in D.C. after a sentence for the misdemeanor sexual abuse of a child. The prior conviction means he’s facing a possible life sentence, the prosecutors said. And while he had to register as a sex offender after his release, he’ll now have to register quarterly for life if he’s ever released.
He’ll be sentenced Nov. 16.
