Illegal Alien Accused of Serial Rapes

(Mount Holly, New Jersey) A 28-year-old illegal alien from Brazil, Marcelo G. Mota, was arrested Friday in Cherry Hill as an alleged serial rapist. Mota's DNA has been linked to rapes in New Jersey and Massachusetts.

He was charged in one rape and one attempted rape in Moorestown in September 2005. A warrant charges him as being a fugitive from Massachusetts, where police say a suspect they dubbed the "Metro West Rapist" attacked two women in 2003.

The Burlington County Prosecutor's Office said today that a key to the arrest was a national crime database of DNA. DNA evidence from one of the Moorestown assaults was submitted to the database, authorities said, and the database matched it with sex attacks in Westborough, Mass., in January 2006. That and other evidence led detectives to charge Mota.

Mota was booked into custody with bond set at $1 million.