Joyful Heart in the News

The Manhattan District Attorney has charged Joseph Giardala, 44, with raping and robbing a woman in New York City’s West Village in 1995. New York couldn’t identify Giardala by name after the rape, but entered his DNA into a national database, where it matched with a case in Florida earlier this year. In the years since allegedly raping a 25-year-old woman at knifepoint, Giardala has lived in at least eleven different U.S. states and appears to have traveled out of the country dozens of times. He was arrested in Los Angeles carrying almost a dozen driver’s licenses and credit cards in different names.

According to a press release from Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance’s office, Giardala was indicted on Friday, May 1, for an attack that took place on the night of January 23, 1995. He’s accused of following the victim as she walked home from the movies, then forcing her into a vestibule of building, where he raped and robbed her while threatening her with a knife.

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