Man charged with raping woman who was walking along Springfield road
Harrison KeeganA criminal charge has been filed against a federal prisoner after police say DNA linked him to the 2017 abduction and rape of a woman in Springfield.
Robbie Robinson, 31, was charged Wednesday with first-degree rape after police say he sexually assaulted a woman after he and two others pulled her into their car as she was walking along Commercial Street.
A probable cause statement says the incident occurred on April 12, 2017, at about 10:30 a.m.
The statement says a woman was walking in the area of Commercial Street and Grant Avenue when a blue car stopped in front of her. Two men got out and pulled the woman into the backseat.
The statement says the car drove around for 5 to 10 minutes before stopping.
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That's when the driver got out of the vehicle, walked around to the back and raped the woman while the two other men held her down, according to the statement.
The woman told police she did not know the men who attacked her and she had never seen them before.
The statement says the woman underwent a sexual assault exam, and the evidence collected was sent to the Missouri State Highway Patrol crime lab for testing.
That forensic evidence generated a match with Robbie Robinson, whose DNA was in the system because of a prior case, according to the statement.
Police interviewed Robinson and he denied sexually assaulting the woman, but the statement says officers collected a saliva sample from Robinson that further proved a match with the DNA from the rape kit.
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As the Springfield Police Department investigated the rape over the last two and a half years, Robinson has been in custody essentially the whole time. He was picked up on a federal gun charge on April 28, 2017, and eventually pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm.
According to online court records, Robinson was sentenced in October 2017 to more than 7 years in federal prison. He is being held at the Federal Correctional Institution in Manchester, Kentucky.
According to federal and Tennessee court documents, Robinson is a gang member who was previously convicted of attempting to rape a 12-year-old girl near Memphis, Tennessee in 2007.
Although court documents mention two other people being involved in the 2017 Springfield rape, police said Monday that no one other than Robinson has been arrested in the case at this point.
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