"East Coast rapist" gets life sentences for Halloween attack

WASHINGTON | Fri Mar 1, 2013 5:34pm EST

(Reuters) - The man police dubbed "the East Coast rapist" for a string of attacks on women was sentenced on Friday to three life sentences plus 80 years for a 2009 Halloween assault on trick-or-treating Virginia teenagers.

Aaron Thomas, 41, of New Haven, Connecticut, was sentenced by Judge Mary Grace O'Brien in Prince William County Circuit Court in Virginia. He will not be eligible for parole, said prosecutor Amy Ashworth.

"Life is life," Ashworth said.

Thomas, the son of a District of Columbia police officer, pleaded guilty to two counts of rape and three counts of abduction last November in connection with the 2009 Halloween attack in a Virginia suburb of Washington. The crime was the last in a series that police linked to the man they dubbed the "East Coast rapist."

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