A trusted member of a close-knit Taiwanese community in suburban Cincinnati is accused of using chloroform to knock out the teenage daughters of his friends and then raping them, prosecutors said.
"He was the guy in the neighborhood who offered to walk your dog while you were on vacation, to watch your house," prosecutor Joseph Deters said of Wu Chien-tai. "He had access to all of them through their garage codes."
A 17-count indictment released on Wednesday said Wu, 50, had been an active member of the Taiwanese community.
"He befriended them and gained their trust," Deters said.
He said Wu learned during weekly poker games when teenage girls might be home alone and later went into the homes, where the rapes were committed.
He is charged with rape, attempted rape, aggravated burglary, felonious assault, gross sexual imposition and illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material.
Some victims did not remember the rapes -- they had been reclothed and there were no signs of forced entry into the house -- and may have thought they had dreamed an attack, Deters said.
Wu, a computer specialist, is charged with three attacks involving girls 15 to 17 years old.
"We believe there is a good chance there are other victims out there," Deters said. "We're asking people who gave Dr. Wu their garage codes to talk to their teenage daughters."
Wu, who has a doctorate in computer science, was arrested on July 24 after an alleged attack the previous week in which the victim apparently was partly conscious and identified him.
Authorities obtained search warrants for a sample of Wu's DNA and recovered a stun gun and a bottle of chloroform in his home, Deters said.
Wu was arraigned the following day and remained in custody on Wednesday in the Hamilton County jail under a US$1 million bond, according to court records. His attorney, James Kolenich, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
In the last attack, on July 18, a 16-year-old girl had returned home after dropping off her brother at a sports practice when a man wearing a mask shocked her with a stun gun and placed a rag soaked with chloroform over her face, Deters said.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
An inauguration ceremony was held yesterday for the Danjiang Bridge, the world’s longest single-mast asymmetric cable-stayed bridge, ahead of its official opening to traffic on Tuesday, marking a major milestone after nearly three decades of planning and construction. At the ceremony in New Taipei City attended by President William Lai (賴清德), Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) and New Taipei City Mayor Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜), the bridge was hailed as both an engineering landmark and a long-awaited regional transport link connecting Tamsui (淡水) and Bali (八里)
RSS