The man known as the East Coast Rapist pleaded guilty Monday to three first-degree rape charges in Prince George's County, Maryland.
In March 2013, Aaron Thomas was indicted on a total of 54 charges in the county, including first-degree sex offense, theft, kidnapping and false imprisonment. He is accused of raping and kidnapping six women there between February 1997 and August 2001.
Thomas pleaded guilty at a motions hearing on Monday.
Thomas, of New Haven, Connecticut, previously was sentenced to three terms of life in prison plus 80 years in Prince William County, Virginia, and two life terms in Loudoun County, Virginia. He has admitted to raping several women from Rhode Island and Connecticut to Virginia over the course of two decades and was arrested in Connecticut in March 2011.
In the Prince William County case, Thomas pleaded to two counts of rape and three counts of abduction for a Halloween 2009 attack on three teenage trick-or-treaters after forcing them into the woods and raping two of them over the course of about an hour. He had a cigarette lighter that was a replica of a gun, prosecutors said. One of the victims was able to text her mother, who called police. Thomas fled when he heard sirens, prosecutors said.
Thomas also previously pleaded guilty to rape and abduction charges in Loudoun County for a rape in May 2001 at a Leesburg apartment complex. A woman moving out of her apartment was bound and raped, authorities said.
