Orange County News

For Immediate Release                                                                           Contact: Christopher Borek
Thursday, May 24, 2018                                                                    845.291.3276, 845.238.4245c

District Attorney Hoovler Announces Prison Sentence in Rape Case 

Cab Driver Who Raped Two Women Sentenced to Twenty-One Years in Prison 

Orange County District Attorney David M. Hoovler announced that on Thursday, May 24, 2018, Javier Alexander Vilchez Salazar, 34, of New Windsor, was sentenced by Orange County Court Judge Craig Stephen Brown to twenty-one years in state prison and ten years post-release supervision for raping two young women in September and November of 2017, after he had picked them up as fares when he was driving a cab near bars and nightclubs on the waterfront in the City of Newburgh. On March 12, 2018, Salazar had pled guilty to two counts of Rape in the First Degree. Vilchez Salazar was arrested on November 25, 2017, by the City of Newburgh Police Department.

At the time Vilchez Salazar pleaded guilty, he admitted that on November 12, 2017, he was driving a cab by the waterfront in Newburgh when he picked up a young woman who was looking for a cab to take her home. Vilchez Salazar admitted driving her to the vicinity of Lake Street in the Town of New Windsor and engaging in sexual intercourse with her by forcible compulsion. Vilchez Salazar also admitted that on September 3, 2017, he picked up a different young woman by the waterfront in Newburgh, who similarly was looking for a cab to take her home. Vilchez Salazar admitted driving the woman to the vicinity of Lake Street in New Windsor and engaging in sexual intercourse with her by forcible compulsion.

District Attorney Hoovler thanked the City of Newburgh Police Department, the Town of New Windsor Police Department, the New York State Police, and an Orange County District Attorney’s Office investigator for the investigation of the case.

The case was prosecuted by Senior Assistant District Attorney Kerry Kolek.

 “The community will be safer during the two decades that this defendant is incarcerated,” said District Attorney Hoovler. “The defendant’s predatory attacks on unsuspecting women who were merely trying to get home safely deserves a lengthy prison sentence. The bravery and tenacity of the survivors of these attacks in coming forward and cooperating with law enforcement is to be admired, and was indispensable to the successful prosecution of this case.”