NEW BEDFORD, MASS. (WHDH) - A rape kit taken in 2012 from a 16-year-old sexual assault victim has led to the indictment of a 28-year-old New Bedford rape defendant.
A Bristol County Grand Jury indicted Dylan Ponte on two counts of rape, two counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over the age of 14 and one count of witness intimidation. Ponte’s case will now be handled in Fall River Superior Court due to his indictment. The court will likely set an arraignment date sometime in September for the new indictment.
As 7NEWS previously reported, Ponte’s arrest on July 12 marked the second time officials have solved a sexual assault case under Bristol County District Attorney Thomas Quinn’s Untested Rape Kit Initiative.
The initiative is now in the process of getting more than 1,100 previously untested Bristol County rape kits fully tested by a private lab under a federal grant for similar initiatives the office received in 2019.
On July 3, 2012, the 16-year-old victim was drinking with Ponte and others near the Hayden-McFadden School. She later told police she blacked out between 1 a.m. and 7 a.m. on July 4th. She woke up outside her friend’s home around 7 a.m. the next morning with no underwear on. She also had bruising on multiple areas of her body and felt pain in “multiple private areas of her body,” according to the DA’s office.
She immediately went to St. Luke’s Hospital with her friend and contacted New Bedford Police. At the hospital, she submitted a rape kit.
The rape kit connected to this 2012 case was tested in May, resulting in the recovery of a DNA profile, which led to a Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) hit to Ponte.
Ponte was already in the system due to his multiple arrests on domestic assault and battery and obstruction charges in the summer and fall of 2020 in Marion County, Florida. He was later convicted of misdemeanor domestic battery in April 2021.
Ponte agreed to submit DNA as part of his plea in Florida.
The Bristol District Attorney’s Office said this case could have been solved more than a year ago if the victim’s rape kit had been fully tested.
“I am extremely pleased that our rape kit testing initiative has already resulted in two cold case rapes being solved from more than a decade ago. Both these cases demonstrate the importance of fully testing all sexual assault kits. If we did not obtain the grant to have all these kits fully tested, this case may never have been solved and the statute of limitations could have expired,” Quinn said in a press release. “Victims who have been sexually assaulted have gone through a very traumatic experience and have a right to have these kits fully tested, especially when an assailant cannot be identified.”
The victim of this case expressed “immense gratitude and relief” when they were informed about the criminal charges and the underlying issues regarding untested rape kits throughout the state.
The District Attorney’s Office said the victim is fully on board with the prosecution and looks forward to the culmination of this case.
Ponte was apprehended by members of New Bedford Police and the Massachusetts State Police Violent Fugitives Apprehension Section on Friday in New Bedford. He appeared briefly in court later that day. A district court judge found him to be a danger but set bail at $1,000 cash with conditions.
Ponte is due back in New Bedford District Court on August 10.
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