Can’t charge jailed sex con in ’94 rape: DA

THE BROOKLYN district attorney’s office won’t be able to charge a “career rapist” accused of a 1994 sex attack in Prospect Park because the case is too old to prosecute.

“Unfortunately, we are bound by the statute of limitations, which expired well over a decade ago, making criminal charges legally impossible,” a spokesman for Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said Wednesday, after the NYPD brought the DA their case against James Webb.

Detectives identified Webb (photo) as the man who raped a 27-year-old woman inside the Brooklyn park on April 26, 1994, a case that, at the time, was mired in investigative problems and skepticism.

Webb, 67, is already serving a life sentence at Sing Sing prison for raping four women in Brooklyn a year after the Prospect Park attack. He’s eligible for parole in 2070.

Webb grabbed the victim on a footpath along Prospect Park, dragged her into the bushes and raped her. Her account was quickly met with skepticism by some cops and Mike McAlary, a columnist for Daily News whose doubts were fueled by accounts from police sources.

The sources told McAlary the woman made up the story to drum up support for a feminism rally. He wrote that the woman engineered a hoax and should be arrested. The woman sued The News for $12 million, claiming McAlary’s allegations damaged her reputation. A judge tossed the suit in 1997, deciding McAlary was not reckless and that he relied on inaccurate information provided by police. McAlary died in 1998.

At the time, cops couldn’t get a DNA hit from the suspect because his genetic material was intermingled with the victim’s. Webb’s name surfaced in November after police, using more advanced technology, were able to separate the two samples and run the suspect’s DNA profile through the state database.

NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said the victim, a Yale graduate who now lives out of state, wept openly when she was told detectives had found a suspect.

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