Queens Tribune

A Flushing man who pleaded guilty to raping and planning to murder his former girlfriend was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Friday.

Angel Lopez, 31, pleaded guilty in July to first-degree rape and second-degree conspiracy.

“The defendant has been convicted of sexually assaulting his former girlfriend in her own home and thereafter brazenly trying to have her murdered while he was in custody on Rikers Island. Fortunately, as the result of superb investigative work, his violent plot was thwarted. The significant prison term imposed today will ensure that the defendant is held accountable for his senseless and brutal acts,” Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.

Lopez broke into the 26-year-old victim’s Floral Park, residence on Nov. 2, 2005 – less than a month after being dumped. He handcuffed and sexually assaulted her while she pleaded with him to stop, prosecutors said. Lopez then dragged her to the bathroom, filled the tub with water and threatened to drown her before putting a knife to her throat and forcibly raping her. He was also charged with stealing $700 in cash from the victim.

Lopez was arrested shortly after the incident and was remanded without bail, prosecutors said. Another inmate later informed prosecutors in the District Attorney’s Special Victim’s Bureau that Lopez wanted to have his former girlfriend killed in order to prevent her from testifying against him while he was in custody at Rikers Island Correctional Facility. An undercover police investigator posing as an inmate’s cousin willing to carry out the contract murder later met with Lopez on Rikers Island as part of a sting operation.

Lopez met with the undercover police officer – who was posing as a “hit-man”– at Rikers Island, provided him with a written description of the victim’s home, and arranged for $1,000 to be paid for shooting to death his former girlfriend, prosecutors said. Lopez made numerous phone calls to the undercover officer seeking information regarding the status of the purported efforts to kill the victim between Feb. 9 and March 16, 2006.

Lopez was sentenced to twenty years in prison on the rape plea and a concurrent term of seven to fourteen years on his conspiracy plea.