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St. Pete Police Rebut E-Mail Rumors About Rapes

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TBO.com

Published: October 16, 2008

At least two e-mails are spreading false information on the Internet about a serial rapist who supposedly carjacked and raped three women last week in northeast St. Petersburg, police say.

One e-mail mentions a rape at a BP gas station on 20th Avenue North and Fourth Street North, but there is no BP gas station there, St. Petersburg police spokesman Bill Proffitt said in a statement.

A slightly different e-mail changes the location to a BP station at 62nd Avenue North and Fourth Street North. Police did investigate an incident there, Proffitt said. On Sept. 28, a woman told police that she was sexually battered at the gas station but recanted after detectives showed her surveillance video that disproved her assertion, Proffitt said.

The other two locations in the e-mails were the Red Mesa restaurant near Fourth Street North, and the intersection of Fifth Avenue North and 28th Street North. Police are not investigating any rape cases in those areas, Proffitt said.

Yet one e-mail contains a detail that appears true, the description of a rape suspect as a "black male with teardrop tattoos," Proffitt said.

Detectives are investigating an Oct. 10 sexual battery case near 38th Avenue North and 28th Avenue North, where a woman told police she was sexually battered by a drug dealer after she called him to buy marijuana. The woman described the drug dealer as a "black male with a tear drop tattoo," who fled from the scene on a bicycle after the attack, police say.

The e-mails are irresponsible and have prompted a number of calls to police from the public, neighborhood groups and the news media, Proffitt said.

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