Fern Street Rape Suspect Headed for Jury Trial

A Hartford man accused of raping a jogger on Fern Street in October, a crime that gripped West Hartford for weeks and triggered widespread public safety concerns, moved toward a jury trial Thursday in Hartford Superior Court.

Eddie Monroig-Rosario, , was placed on a trial list by Superior Court Judge Arthur P. Gold, apparently ending a five-month period of  preliminary hearings. Monroig-Rosario can still change his plea, and his next date in court in the rape case was not decided.

Monroig-Rosario, 31, formerly of 218 Park Terrace in Hartford, is charged with . He is jailed at McDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield, with bail set at $2 million.

Monroig-Rosario was also scheduled to stand trial Dec. 30 in connection with a in West Hartford and Hartford. Those charges are unrelated to the reported rape Oct. 27. He has pleaded not guilty to six alleged burglaries and was scheduled for a plea hearing May 20 on another.

Monroig-Rosario was captured Nov. 16 in Springfield after eluding police for nearly three weeks. He faces a minimum of 20 years if convicted on the rape charges.

A West Hartford woman was jogging along Fern Street before 7 a.m. on Oct. 27, she told , when she was dragged into some bushes in the front yard of a residence and raped. Police Chief James Strillacci has said connects Monroig-Rosario to the crime.

The brazen attack along a popular jogging route and in a well-traveled area  before Monroig-Rosario’s capture near a Springfield homeless shelter brought a measure of relief.

Monroig-Rosario is represented by Bruce Lorenzen, a 13-year veteran of the public defender’s office. In October, Lorenzen defended an East Hartford man who kidnapped and tried to rape a teenage girl and attempted to kill her mother with a shotgun that misfired. The man was sentenced to 17 years in a plea agreement approved by Judge Gold.

Lorenzen also recently defended a Manchester man who pleaded guilty to raping two young girls in Manchester and Windsor.