A former Boston banker was charged with raping 2 women and 2 girls at knifepoint nearly 2 decades ago

Updated

A former Boston banker was accused of being a serial rapist who held most of his victims at knifepoint, including 13-year-old and 14-year-old girls, and stabbed three of them, authorities said Tuesday.

Ivan Cheung, 42, was charged with multiple counts of aggravated rape, rape of a child and other crimes that the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office said occurred from 2003 to 2006.

Cheung, who has addresses in Boston and suburban Quincy, was held in lieu of $1 million bail after an appearance in Boston Municipal Court on Tuesday, NBC Boston reported.

People walk outside Boston Municipal Court. (Google Maps)
People walk outside Boston Municipal Court. (Google Maps)

A spokesman for State Street, the Boston-based financial services firm, said Tuesday that Cheung had been fired. A Linkedin profile that appeared to be Cheung’s listed his position at the company as vice president of procurement category strategy.

In the first case, Cheung is accused of picking up a 13-year-old girl in Boston's Chinatown neighborhood, the prosecutor's office said.

He is accused of driving her to a different location, where, officials say, he raped her at knifepoint and stabbed her in the shoulder, the statement said.

Cheung is alleged to have picked up a 14-year-old girl in the Charles Circle area a week later. He held a knife to her throat before he raped her twice and stabbed her, prosecutor Ian Polumbaum alleged in court.

Two years later, Cheung picked up a 23-year-old near downtown Boston, the statement alleged. The prosecutor's office said he held a knife to her throat before he raped and repeatedly stabbed her.

He is also accused of picking up an 18-year-old in the city's North End neighborhood and holding a knife to her throat and raping her in 2006, the prosecutor's office said.

Cheung was arrested after authorities launched an effort in April to reinvestigate 100 unsolved sexual assault cases in Boston.

Detectives followed Cheung to a mall this year and retrieved his discarded cigarette, Polumbaum said. A male DNA profile obtained from the cigarette matched genetic material taken from sexual assault kits used in the 2005 and 2006 cases, Polumbaum told a judge.

Polumbaum said there were other "common threads" among the four cases, including the type of car the suspect used in the assaults.

Cheung's lawyer, E. Peter Parker, said in an email Wednesday that the allegations are "very old."

"That presents complicated evidentiary, factual and forensic issues for the prosecution, all of which we will aggressively challenge," he said.

Cheung's next court appearance is Sept. 22.

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