Orange County Cab Driver Sentenced For 2 Rapes

GOSHEN, NY — An Orange County cabbie has been sentenced in the rape of two women he picked up as fares in the City of Newburgh. Orange County District Attorney David M. Hoovler said Alexander Vilchez Salazar, 34, of New Windsor, was sentenced to 21 years in state prison and 10 years post-release supervision for raping two young women in September and November 2017.

He had picked the women up when he was driving a cab near bars and nightclubs on the waterfront in Newburgh.

Vilchez Salazar pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree rape March 12.

At the time of his guilty plea, Vilchez Salazar admitted that on Nov. 12, 2017, he was driving a cab by the waterfront when he picked up a young woman who was looking for a cab to take her home.

He admitted driving her to the vicinity of Lake Street in the Town of New Windsor and engaging in sexual intercourse with her “by forcible compulsion.”

Vilchez Salazar admitted the same thing with a different woman on Sept. 3, 2017.

“The community will be safer during the two decades that this defendant is incarcerated,” Hoovler said. “The defendant’s predatory attacks on unsuspecting women who were merely trying to get home safely deserves a lengthy prison sentence. The bravery and tenacity of the survivors of these attacks in coming forward and cooperating with law enforcement is to be admired, and was indispensable to the successful prosecution of this case.”

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