A California man serving a lengthy prison term has been charged with tying up and robbing a shopping mall manager in 1994, authorities said Tuesday.
Thomas John Loguidice, 65, was indicted on Dec. 14 for a felony count of kidnapping with intent to commit robbery, along with allegations that he used a deadly weapon, the threat of great bodily harm, and a high degree of callousness, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office said.
“We don’t forget victims and we don’t forgive violent crime,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement. “Our message to our community is that this Office will use advancing DNA forensics, detective work, and determination to seek justice. Our message to violent criminals is: ‘Don’t do it. You won’t get away with it.’”
MAN ARRESTED FOR SECOND DECADES-OLD STANDFORD UNIVERSITY COLD-CASE MURDER
Loguidice is currently serving a 40-year prison sentence for an unrelated 2012 sexual abuse of a child conviction in San Benito County.
Thomas John Loguidice, 65, was linked and charged in connection with a 1994 sex crime on a California shopping mall employee, prosecutors said this week.
( Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office)
Prosecutors said an employee at the President Tuxedo store in San Jose’s Oakridge Mall arrived to work at 10 a.m. on Jan. 13, 1994 and prepared to open the store. Loguidice entered the showroom area and forced her into the back storage room at knifepoint, authorities said.
He then allegedly bound her wrists and tied her to a pipe. After taking some cash from the register, he allegedly sexually assaulted the woman before fleeing the scene on foot.
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Authorities hit a wall while probing the case. While revisiting the investigation, a sample of the assailant’s DNA from the crime scene was found to match an entry in the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). The entry matched a sample given by Loguidice after his arrest for the sex crimes in San Benito County.
He was not indicted for sexual assault because the statute of limitations for that crime expired in 2000, prosecutors said. He was expected to appear in court Wednesday on the new charges.
