News Release: Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., today announced the sentencing of Rodney Stover, 49, to 20 years-to-life in state prison for the April 2015 violent sexual assault of a 23-year-old woman in the bathroom of a bar in the Flatiron District. On September 21, 2016, Stover pleaded guilty in New York State Supreme Court to three counts of Predatory Sexual Assault.
“Rodney Stover lay in wait in a basement bathroom before attacking a young woman as she left the adjacent stall,” said District Attorney Vance. “This brutal sex assault took place merely two months after the defendant was released from prison for a previous rape conviction. Thanks to the strength of this survivor, as well as the work of my Office’s prosecutors and the NYPD, this predator is no longer free to commit crimes against other women.”
According to the defendant’s guilty plea and statements made on the record in court, at approximately 7:30 p.m. on April 11, 2015, after hiding in the basement bathroom of a bar on East 27th Street, Stover attacked a woman as she left an adjacent bathroom stall. Stover grabbed the woman by her neck, forced her back into the stall while covering her mouth, threatened her, raped her, and fled the scene.
Four days later, Stover walked past the bar. An employee alerted the NYPD, and Stover was placed under arrest.
According to court documents, Stover was previously convicted of Rape in the First Degree for a June 1993 incident in Suffolk County.
