Gary man gets 120 years in rape case

Convicted in absentia, he remains at large

A Gary man sentenced Friday to 120 years in a rape case was a “monster,” prosecutors said.

Montrelle Dubose, 52, wasn’t in the courtroom to hear his fate.

He skipped the last day of his three-day trial in April and was convicted in absentia in 13 of 14 charges. At sentencing, a couple of the charges were consolidated.

Dubose was accused of repeatedly sexually assaulting a young woman in various locations, whom he met June 9, 2019, at the Gary Metro Station after she locked her keys in the car, an affidavit states. He claimed he was an off-duty police officer and was going to take her to file a report, documents allege.

“I don’t think I’ve seen anybody worse in my 32 years in the criminal justice system,” Judge Samuel Cappas said near the hearing’s end, uncharacteristically emotional from the bench.

He was “the worst of the worst,” the judge said.

Dubose is still at large and prosecutors believe he has associates in Gary and Indianapolis.

Gary police and the Lake County Sheriff ’s Office are looking. The U.S. Marshals have also been activated in the search.

Lake County Prosecutor Infinity Westberg said Dubose was a serial sexual predator who targeted the young woman because she was alone and trusting.

At the time, the victim was a chemical engineering student in a Western state and picked a college internship in Gary because she wanted to be closer to her mom, who lived elsewhere in Indiana.

During the trial, the young woman gave detailed and vivid testimony about her ordeal. Now at sentencing, she spoke of her trauma and struggles since the crime.

Earlier that day, she, her mom

and grandmother went to Red Robin to celebrate her grandmother’s birthday. Afterward, she needed to get back to Gary for her internship, but was afraid of taking the Greyhound, she said. Her mom told her to face her fears, the woman said.

The crime left her mentally and physically scared, she said. The woman said she has had panic attacks if someone turned off a route in a car and has struggled with trusting men.

“I felt so much guilt and I blamed myself,” she said.

Dubose, she later learned, was 51, the same age as her parents. She asked for him to spend the rest of his life in prison.

The mother said in testimony she felt intense guilt for making her daughter take the bus, or even having moved to Indiana, feeling it exposed her to the crime. She saluted her daughter’s courage, even nothing she finished the internship even after the rape, because she would honor a work commitment.

Dubose taking off robbed her of the chance to face him, the victim said.

He had a history of violence against women dating back almost 30 years to a 1992 battery charge, Westberg said. He had seven past felony convictions, 10 misdemeanors and 22 “contacts” with criminal courts, indicating a career criminal.

On at least three times, he failed to register as a sex offender, she said. The rap sheet likely was incomplete, since Dubose had used identity deception multiple times in the past, Westberg added.

Dubose had prior rape convictions in Illinois and Michigan, along with a past attempted rape charge in Boston, allegedly targeting a woman getting off a bus station alone from a recent drug rehab stint. That charge was dropped, but the circumstances were similar to the Gary case, Westberg said.

“He knew she was alone. He went out of his way to keep going after this girl,” she said. “He preyed on her innocence and politeness.”

Dubose’s failure to appear was “despicable,” Westberg said, calling him a “monster.”

“I would not be shocked if he rapes again. He is the man that little girls are taught to be afraid of,” she said. “He showed no mercy. He deserves no mercy from this court.”

The victim was visiting her family from an Indianapolis suburb, and had locked her keys in her vehicle after arriving at the Gary Metro Station around 8:10 p.m. June 9, 2019, a probable cause affidavit said. She told police she was waiting for a tow company when a man approached her and asked if he could use her cellphone, the affidavit said.

When she refused, the man became agitated, and the woman told police she hid in the women’s bathroom.

Once the woman left the bathroom, another man, identified as Dubose, followed her to her car and insisted she needed to make a police report, the affidavit said.

The woman said Dubose directed her to a place she initially believed to be police station and that he was writing something down in a notebook of hers as they drove, court records said. He placed the notebook down before directing her down a dark, garbagestrewn alley, then threatened to kill her if she tried to flee or scream, the affidavit said.

He then took the woman’s keys, phone and pepper spray before sexually assaulting her the first time, court records state.

That was the beginning of the hours long ordeal that included multiple sexual assaults, according to court documents.

“I don’t think we ever left Gary, we were just circling around for hours,” she said at trial.

As he finally left the car, he told her, “Stay safe, take care, get home to East Chicago, you’re really sweet,” court records said. The woman told police she immediately sped off and called her mom, who was already at the Gary Police Station filing a missing persons report, records said.

Dubose’s lawyer John Cantrell didn’t deny he had a “meaty record.”

“This is not a murder,” Cantrell said. “Anything over 50 years is essentially a death sentence.”

Based on state law guidelines, Cappas said the rape counts should stand separately and he handed down the maximum sentence.

As the sentence was read, the victim’s mother turned to hug her.

“My sympathies to you,” Cappas said. “It’s not a murder case. The pain is worse in a murder case. The victim doesn’t have to live with the pain.”