SUSPECT ARRESTED FOLLOWING RECENT DNA MATCH ARRAIGNED ON
‘JOHN DOE’ INDICTMENT ALLEGEDING SEX CRIMES AGAINST A TWELVE
YEAR OLD BOY IN VAN CORTLANDT PARK IN 1998

Bronx District Attorney Robert T. Johnson announced today the first arrest of a defendant
in Bronx County to be charged with a crime in a ‘John Doe’ indictment based on a DNA profile.
The suspect, Emmanuel Taveras, 27, of 550 West 157th Street, Manhattan, has been charged with
committing sex offenses against a 12 year old boy who was on his way to school.

The grand jury indicted Taveras, first as ‘John Doe’, on two counts of Criminal Sexual
Act in the 1st degree, a Class B felony offense, two counts of Sexual Abuse in the 1st degree, a
Class D felony offense, and one count of Endangering the Welfare of a Child, a Class A
misdemeanor offense. Taveras is facing a maximum sentence of up to 25 years imprisonment if
convicted of the most serious offense.

The alleged crimes occurred on April 23, 1998 in a wooded area in Van Cortlandt Park.
The 12 year old victim was standing at a bus stop at 251st Street and Broadway across the street
from the park when the defendant allegedly approached the boy and asked for assistance in
finding the baseball field. It is alleged that as the child accompanied him, Taveras pulled the
boy into a wooded area, punched him in the face and forced him to engage in oral and anal
sexual acts.

Although Taveras was not identified as a suspect until this year, the grand jury returned
an indictment in this case on June 6, 2005. Named in the indictment was ‘John Doe’ whose only
identity at the time was the DNA profile that had been developed from the rape kit in the 1998
attack.

The defendant’s profile was entered into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) a
national data bank that links federal, state and local DNA data banks containing forensic
biological evidence collected from crime victims. The profile was identified as a match for
Taveras as a result of his conviction on a drug offense in Bergen County, New Jersey, at which
time a sample of his DNA was uploaded to the national data base.

District Attorney Johnson said: “This arrest underscores the importance of the expansion
in recent years of law enforcement’s use of DNA technology, from the mayor’s initiative to
eliminate the back log of rape kits to the governor signing into law, bills requiring all convicted
felons and those convicted of certain misdemeanors to provide the state data base with DNA
samples. We now have a huge opportunity to solve open sexual assault cases that might
otherwise have gone unsolved.”

Assistant District Attorney Rachel Singer of the Child Abuse / Sex Offense Bureau is
prosecuting the case.