TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

'America's Most Wanted' To Feature Local Rape Case

ADVERTISEMENT

By VALERIE KALFRIN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 2, 2008

TAMPA - A man convicted earlier this year of raping a woman in her apartment near the University of South Florida in 1999 will be featured on "America's Most Wanted" on Saturday.

Christian Clemente Rodriguez, 35, received a life sentence in January for felony sexual battery and felony armed kidnapping, court records show.

Saturday's show airs at 9 p.m. Eastern Time and will review the case and the manhunt, as well as the lengthy trial process.

Rodriguez is being held at Okaloosa Correctional Institution in the Panhandle. He is appealing both his conviction in January and another in 2006 for sexual battery and armed kidnapping charges related to the rape of a second woman in 1999, court records show.

"America's Most Wanted" led to Rodriguez's capture in 2005 after someone who watched the program notified authorities he was in San Juan, Puerto Rico, according to an FBI spokeswoman at that time.

An accomplice in the case, Samuel Ortiz Lopez, was sentenced in 2000 to 10 years of felony probation for charges including armed burglary with assault.

Information from the Tribune archives was used in this report. Reporter Valerie Kalfrin can be reached at (813) 259-7800 or vkalfrin@tampatrib.com.

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT