By Kevin Shea, NJ.com
Andre D. Wesley is already a convicted rapist spending many decades in prison for the violent sexual attack of a woman behind a vacant Camden building in 2016 in which he slashed her neck and left her for dead. The 22-year-old victim survived.
When authorities were searching for Wesley in late 2016, Camden police labeled him a “suspected serial rapist” because they believed he was involved in other similar crimes.
Authorities in Mercer County hope to officially hang that title on the 32-year-old, who’s serving a 70-year prison term for 17 crimes related to the Camden rape.
Wesley is scheduled to appear in Mercer County Superior Court Monday in an ongoing case against him that accuses him of raping three women in Trenton during separate incidents in March, September and November 2016.
His lawyer, Ronald B. Thompson, of Sicklerville, Winslow Township, did not return a message seeking comment.
He’s been indicted on 25 charges in Mercer County, including 11 counts of aggravated sexual assault, plus kidnapping and an assortment of weapons violations. Wesley, court papers allege, attacked women while armed with knives or scissors.
In two of the cases, he forcibly took women from the area of Mott Street in Trenton’s South Ward, and in each case, he repeatedly raped and assaulted the women, authorities said.
In the September 2016 attack, Wesley allegedly took the woman to a Chestnut Avenue house where he punched, choked and raped her before locking her in a second-floor bedroom and leaving, prosecutors have said. The woman waited until she heard Wesley leave and then climbed out of a window and escaped, authorities said.
In early December 2016, police in Trenton and Camden linked Wesley to crimes, and issued warrants for his arrest. Police arrested him at his residence in Willingboro, where he arrived while detectives were executing a search warrant. He pulled out a knife and struggled with cops.
Wesley went to trial in the Camden rape, in July and August of 2018, and a jury convicted him of a staggering 17 crimes, including six counts of aggravated sexual assault. In December, a judge sentenced him to 70 years in the state prison system with a mandatory minimum of over 59 years.
His current parole eligibility date is in March of 2072.
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