A Moscow court on Friday sentenced a former traffic police officer to 14 years in prison for raping 27 women.
The Nagatinsky District Court also convicted Artur Kositsyn, 34, who worked as a lieutenant for the Podolsk traffic police force in the Moscow region until May 2009, of attempted rape and sexual harassment, RIA-Novosti reported, citing a court spokeswoman.
An investigation found that Kositsyn went on a rape spree in southern Moscow for a few months in 2009, usually following his victims into elevators or their house entrances and then raping them under threat of violence with a knife, the report said.
The court was able to prove 27 rape cases out of the 39 that Kositsyn was initially charged with, Vzglyad newspaper reported.
Prosecutors initially asked for 15 years imprisonment, but the sentence was reduced by one year under a deal with Kositsyn in which he agreed to be incarcerated in a maximum-security prison, RIA-Novosti said.
Kositsyn, who was arrested in December 2009, admitted his guilt and apologized to the court in his closing statement, it said.
He still has the option of appealing the sentence within 10 days of the ruling. It was unclear whether he would appeal.
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