Man who eluded authorities for 23 years guilty of rapes

A man who evaded justice for more than two decades after being indicted for the sexual assault of two boys was found guilty yesterday of five counts of child rape, officials said.

John J. Hartin, 48, was indicted for child sexual assault in 1993 but fled and remained on the lam for 23 years. Hartin was a fugitive in 2016 when law enforcement caught up with him in North Carolina, where he was living under the name “Jay Matthew Carter.”

After Boston cops, FBI agents, U.S. marshals and Suffolk prosecutors led a renewed effort to find Hartin, he was discovered to be living in Walkertown, N.C.

The victims, authorities said, were 6 and 9 at the time of the rapes in 1991 and 1992, which occurred when Hartin was living in Dorchester, prosecutor Alissa Goldhaber said.

Hartin was in a romantic relationship with a relative of one of the victims, and the second boy was friend of that child, Goldhaber said.

A Suffolk Superior Court jury found him guilty yesterday of five counts of rape of a child. He is slated to be sentenced Tuesday.

“Child sex assault inflicts a unique and terrible harm on its victims,” Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said in a statement. “No matter how many years go by, no matter how far the offender might run, survivors may still feel a part of themselves trapped and afraid. Our commitment to them does not waver with time, and I hope they take some small comfort in knowing their disclosures helped us hold this defendant accountable.”

Hartin’s defense attorney, Robert Zanello, declined to comment.