Career sex offender hit with new 16-year prison sentence for raping NYC mom in elevator
A high-risk sex offender who raped a woman at knifepoint inside a Bronx elevator just weeks after being paroled is headed back to state prison — after getting slapped with at least 16 years behind bars in the vicious attack, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Ramon Rotestan, 47, was sentenced Tuesday after pleading guilty to first-degree attempted rape and first-degree attempted robbery July 25 for assaulting the 40-year-old mom in a Pelham Bay apartment building on May 9, 2022, the Bronx District Attorney’s Office said.
Rotestan had been released from the upstate Greene Correctional Facility just six weeks before the assault after serving a 16-year term for an earlier rape and burglary.
At around 10 p.m. that night, he followed the woman into the elevator, pulled a knife and told her, “This is a robbery, don’t do anything stupid,” police said.
He demanded money and then raped her before running off with $112, according to cops.
Rotestan, who had only been on parole for 39 days at the time, was busted three days later, with cops using elevator surveillance video to help identify him as the attacker.
“The defendant brutally attacked the victim, who was coming home after work to her children,” Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark said in a statement Wednesday.
“No woman should have to fear walking into their own building,” the statement said. “The defendant’s actions have deeply affected her. Her sense of safety and peace have been taken.”
According to records, Rotestan has two prior rape busts on Dec. 11, 2005, and Feb. 2, 2006, and an attempted rape arrest from Feb. 28, 2006.
In all three, he was armed with a knife and approached the victims inside elevators, also demanding money, the records show.
He had been scheduled to remain on parole until March 2027 after his latest release from prison last year.
He has also served time for first-degree robbery, attempted criminal sale of a controlled substance, and criminal possession of a controlled substance, records show.
