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Man Convicted of Kidnapping, Raping Woman for 3 Days With 2-Year-Old Daughter in Next Room

A 31-year-old Brooklyn man was convicted Wednesday of kidnapping, raping and torturing his former girlfriend, including beating her with a dumbbell and shaving off her hair, for three days with their 2-year-old daughter present in the apartment for most of the ordeal.

Prosecutors say Alex Anselmo, of Clinton Hill, pushed his way into his ex-girlfriend's Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment on April 1, 2013, punched her and handcuffed her to the bed, where she remained tied for most of the next three days. Anselmo raped and sodomized her each day, used a knife to cut her feet, severing a tendon, and beat her with a dumbbell and an extension cord, according to prosecutors.

He also threatened to shoot her with a gun, stuffed a sock in her mouth and used clippers to cut off all of her hair. In total, the victim had 50 wounds to her body and feet, and prosecutors say the former couple's 2-year-old daughter was forced to stay in the living room through most of her mother's captivity.

A neighbor who had become concerned listened through the door and heard the cock of a gun on April 3, 2013; the neighbor called police. When police officers from the Emergency Services Unit broke down the door, they found the victim tied to the bed in a formal dress she was forced to wear earlier that day, according to testimony. A revolver was recovered in the apartment.

The district attorney said that evidence presented at trial showed that Anselmo took a cellphone photo of the woman’s stab wound during the crime, which was deleted but later recovered. Evidence also showed that two days prior to breaking into her apartment, he conducted web searches on how many Xanax pills are needed to cause a death and on how to sterilize a woman.

According to trial testimony, the 31-year-old victim broke up with Anselmo, with whom she has two daughters, in the spring of 2012, and he became increasingly obsessive.

After learning via Facebook that she met another man and was planning to move to Florida, he grew more incensed, the evidence showed, contacting her in violation of an order of protection taken against him in 2012 after he attacked the victim.

Anselmo was convicted Wednesday of 17 charges, including first-degree kidnapping, first-degree rape, first-degree burglary, aggravated criminal contempt and other crimes. He faces up to life in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced next month.

It wasn't clear if Anselmo or his attorney spoke after his conviction.

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