CHARLOTTE -- Jurors found Fitzgerald Rice guilty Wednesday of seven of the nine counts against him during his trial for rape and assault. He was sentenced to a minimum of 70 years in prison.
He was found guilty of four of the five second-degree sex offense charges, guilty of two counts of attempted second-degree sexual offense, and guilty of assault by strangulation. However, the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict on the second-degree kidnapping charge. Rice expressed no emotions when the verdict was read and declined the opportunity to address the court.
The judge said he was convinced based on the evidence that the defendant was a serial rapist.
Rice was accused of sexually assaulting, strangling, and kidnapping a 25-year-old woman at his east Charlotte apartment in 2012. The jury also heard from the victim during the trial. She described the alleged attack in detail, admitting she went to Rice's apartment to perform a sex act for money, but he said he wanted more.
When she refused, he became violent. Prosecutors also called other women to the stand who said Rice attacked and sexually assaulted them.
He spent nearly a decade in prison for beating a woman with a hammer and trying to rape her. The defense says the accuser in this case kept changing her story, attacking her credibility and questioning the DNA evidence presented and the police department's methods.