Serial-rape suspect Brent J. Brents was charged Tuesday with two additional sexual assaults in a crime spree that terrorized the Cheesman Park neighborhood of Denver earlier this year.
The two sexual assaults, both in January, bring the total number of people police say he sexually assaulted in Aurora and Denver to 11.
And authorities believe he might have raped more women. Brents has boasted of more than 20 sexual assaults.
Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey said that the two women came forward shortly after he and Police Chief Gerry Whitman made pleas in February for any additional victims to speak up.
“Certainly if anyone else were to come forward, we would continue to investigate Mr. Brents and any behavior he could be held responsible for,” the district attorney said.
Cynthia Stone, spokeswoman for the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault, said it was encouraging that the women have come forward.
“It’s a testament that the victims are being believed and supported,” Stone said.
On Feb. 24, , 80 felony counts were filed against the 35-year- old Brents in Denver. Those charges reflected allegations involving sexual assaults on seven women and the attempted murder of an eighth.
On Tuesday, Morrissey added three more felony counts of sexual assault using force and two counts of third-degree assault, both misdemeanors.
The charges allege that Brents lured a 23-year-old woman into his car on Jan. 11 and sexually assaulted her near East 10th Avenue and York Street. He drove away and released her in another part of town. The attack occurred between 8 and 9 a.m.
The new charges also say that Brents lured a 22-year-old woman into his car at about 5 p.m. on Jan. 21 and sexually assaulted her near East 14th Avenue and Race Street. She was later released.
Brents’ defense attorneys have adamantly declined to comment.
The incidents addressed in the new charges allegedly occurred in the early stages of a rampage that followed Brents’ release from prison in July. He had served 16 years of a 20-year sentence for sexual assaults on children. In 1988, he raped a 6-year-old boy in a trash bin in Denver and a few days later raped a 9-year-old girl at knifepoint.
In October, authorities said, he sexually assaulted a 25-year- old woman. In all, according to the charges, he is accused of sexually assaulting seven people and severely beating another woman in Denver.
Morrissey said there is no obvious pattern to Brents’ alleged predatory pattern.
“They are all ages; they’re kids to a grandmother. There was a woman that was at work. There was a woman who was at home. There may very well have been a woman who was lured to him or his car and sexually assaulted,” Morrissey said.
Morrissey said he could try the first 80 counts first and ask the judge to permit him to use the Jan. 11 and Jan. 21 alleged assaults as “similars” to show an alleged method of operation and intent on Brents’ part.
The district attorney said he has met with most of the victims or their families.
“I’ve had phone conversations with them, and we’ve set up meetings,” Morrissey said. “They’ve come down, and we’ve talked to almost every single one of the victims – the ones that are available or members of their families.
“They each have their issues that they are dealing with,” he said.
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-820-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
