FIT student dead after being drugged, raped in her NYC dorm: prosecutor
A man raped a student at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology after giving her fentanyl that left her unconscious and ultimately killed her, federal prosecutors said Thursday.The student’s friend also took the drug and nearly died.Moises Freire, 19, of the Bronx, was charged with participating in a fentanyl distribution conspiracy and distributing a deadly drug with intent to commit rape.
Brian Peralta Cabrera, 18, of Queens, was also charged in the drug conspiracy.According to prosecutors, Freire brought fentanyl to the students’ dorm room on March 18 and falsely claimed that the substance, which he’d previously described as “straight poison,” was pure cocaine.At his urging, the women took the drug and almost immediately lost consciousness, prosecutors said.
Freire was not a student at FIT.The woman he is accused of raping lapsed into a coma and died March 21.Freire and Peralta Cabrera were first arrested in March and pleaded not guilty to an initial set of charges that did not include the rape allegation.
They remain in federal custody and have yet to be arraigned on the new indictment.A third defendant, Harry Rosales Pino, pleaded guilty in September to a charge of conspiracy to distribute narcotics resulting in death and serious bodily injury.He is set to be sentenced in December.Emails seeking comment were left for lawyers for Freire and Peralta Cabrera.
If convicted, they face a mandatory minimum of 20 years in prison and a possible life sentence.Neither of the women were identified in court papers.The Fashion Institute of Technology, part of the State University of New York, was not identified, either, but a defense lawyer mentioned it during a prior hearing.School officials didn’t immediately comment.At a court hearing in April, Freire’s lawyer, Mitchell Schwartz, called the woman’s death a tragedy but said Freire was not trying to ply the students with drugs.If anything, he told Judge Sidney Stein, what preceded the overdoses ...