DNA leads to guilty verdict in 1976 rape

It took 41 years for authorities to bring the case of a Boca Raton teenage babysitter’s rape to trial. It only took about 45 minutes for a jury Monday to return a conviction.

Resolving one of South Florida’s oldest cold-case prosecutions, the jury of three women and three men found John Arthur MacLean guilty of committing armed sexual battery on Oct. 16, 1976.

It took decades for the emergence of DNA technology to target the 71-year-old MacLean, who called himself “Superthief” for a particular set of skills he used to break into scores of homes across the state in the 1970s.

Palm Beach County prosecutors had a single piece of evidence in the babysitter rape case — a quartersized sample of the 15-year-old vic-

tim’s jeans. It was tested by a lab six years ago, and a semen stain was matched to MacLean, though the defense blasted it as not credible.

“We all just felt strong about the DNA,” said the jury foreman, who asked not to be identified, when reached by phone.

MacLean, who railed against the criminal justice system after his October 2012 arrest but declined to testify during his trial, had no reaction when the verdict was read aloud in court. He returned to Palm Beach County Jail, where he’s been held without bond since his arrest at a Deerfield Beach mobile home park.

Circuit Judge Jeffrey Colbath set a May 1 hearing to discuss a possible date for MacLean’s sentencing; he faces up to life in prison.

MacLean also awaits a second trial soon concerning the Feb. 28, 1977, rape of a 26-year-old mother of two, also in Boca Raton, and based on a DNA link from a single swab of evidence.

Assistant Public Defenders Christopher Fox-Lent and Stephen Arbuzow declined to comment about the verdict. Assistant State Attorneys Brianna Coakley and Marci Rex said they could not discuss it because of the pending case.

MacLean’s criminal past was not shared with the jury, to avoid potential bias against him. He was convicted of stealing $1 million in jewelry from the Fort Lauderdale mansion of a Johnson & Johnson heiress in 1979. For that and other burglaries, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Police then also considered him a suspect in numerous sexual battery cases.

MacLean was charged in 1981 with rapes in Miami and Boca Raton, but the cases were later dismissed, records show.

But in 2005, MacLean was forced to provide samples of his DNA, or genetic fingerprint, after finishing a prison sentence on an early 1990s Arizona sex offense. A Boca Raton police detective used the DNA to arrest MacLean in the 1976 and 1977 rapes. There was no time limit for cops to pursue charges in those cases.

However, a statute of limitations prevented police from charging MacLean in the February 1976 rapes of 14-year-old and 18-year-old Boca sisters.

In a key ruling last week, Judge Colbath allowed prosecutors to share with the jurors the allegations about the sisters’ rapes, and DNA evidence of a link between a stain on a robe with MacLean.

That “definitely helped” eliminate any doubts the jurors may have had about linking MacLean to the rape of the babysitter in a home on Malaga Drive.

“It wasn’t a coincidence,” the jury foreman said.

The babysitter and the sisters, now in their mid-50s, testified last week about their memories of being threatened with a gun and attacked by a man wearing pantyhose over his face. They said the assailant told them not to scream.

The South Florida Sun Sentinel is not identifying the women due to the circumstances of the case.

“It has taken 41 years to unmask John MacLean,” prosecutor Coakley said in her closing argument Friday. “It’s time.”

But MacLean’s attorneys questioned how the jury could trust “the integrity” of the evidence — a tiny sample of denim loosely stored in an unsealed box and basically forgotten for decades and “all of sudden it just reappears.”

The defense also said police lost or destroyed all evidence from the babysitter crime scene, which would have cleared MacLean.

“This case stands on the shaky legs of no evidence,” defense attorney Arbuzow said in his final words to the jury. “It would be a travesty of law to convict this man on such weak, terrible lack of evidence.”

For several minutes Friday, MacLean insisted on giving his own closing remarks, despite the judge warning it was “a tremendously bad idea.” His attorneys also urged MacLean to reconsider, and he finally agreed to let the lawyers handle it.

MacLean had previously called the evidence “laughable” and said prosecutors had “no way in hell of proving” their case.

But at the trial, the prosecutors said the DNA link was unquestionably strong. They said the important thing was that it was preserved since the girl was attacked while babysitting two small neighborhood children.

“He left behind DNA — and a mask couldn’t cover that,” Rex said. “This case got better with age.”

MacLean