Bar Restroom Rapist Gets 20 Years to Life

By MARK SULEYMANOV & LINDA KRESTANOVA

A serial rapist was sentenced to 20 years to life on Thursday as he sat silently, wearing the dark-rimmed glasses that he’d previously stated were what got him caught.

Rodney Stover pleaded guilty to sexual assault in late September after having claimed innocence when arrested in April of 2015. While denying he’d committed the crime following his arrest, he complained that his glasses “aren’t even black,” saying that cops had all suspects don similar glasses when the victim recognized him in a lineup.

On April 11, the victim, then 23, had been at the Flatiron District’s Turnmill bar, on East 27^th Street, with her boyfriend celebrating a friend’s birthday. While she was in the basement restroom, Stover shoved her into a stall, grabbed her throat, verbally threatened and raped her.

After fleeing, Stover was caught a few days later when he was seen strolling by the Turnmill. The bar’s owner, Tom Lucas, easily recognized him after having watched camera footage of the night of the crime and he alerted police.

At the time of his arrest, Stover was already classified as a Level 3 sex offender by the criminal justice system.

Stover, 49, had spent more than 20 years in prison for sexual attacks, which included the rape of a 42-year-old Long Island woman in 1992. When released from a Pennsylvania prison on Feb. 14, 2015, he took a bus to New York City and began living in the Bellevue Men’s Shelter. He was still living there on the day of his arrest.

During a 2015 interview with the New York Post, Stover made claims that included having been molested by his mother as a child.

Speaking about his criminal past, he said that he did not need to resort to rape to get women.

“I’m not a bad-looking guy,” he said, before raising his eyebrow and saying, “That was my Cary Grant.”