Massachusetts sex offender charged with 2010 attack after rape kit collected 12 years ago is finally tested

A state report last year revealed 6,502 rape kits were untested in Massachusetts – some dating back as far as 1987

Scot Trudeau (Bristol County)

A known sex offender has been arrested and charged over a 2010 attack after a rape kit collected 12 years ago was finally tested.

Scot Trudeau, 47, was charged with aggravated rape and assault and battery last week for the violent rape of a 23-year-old woman in Massachusetts.

Trudeau, who was on probation at the time of his arrest for a separate sex crime, was indicted by a Bristol County grand jury and is scheduled to appear in court for a dangerousness hearing on Tuesday.

The breakthrough in the case comes after a damning state report last year revealed a backlog of 6,502 untested rape kits in Massachusetts dating back as far as 1987.

The rape kit used to eventually tie Trudeau to the decade-old cold case was among 1,148 kits still untested in Bristol County alone.

Prosecutors said that the 23-year-old victim was walking in the New Bedford area on 18 March 2010 when she was violently attacked by two men in hooded sweatshirts.

The attackers struck her in the head and dragged her to a secluded area.

Trudeau then allegedly raped the victim while the second man held her down.

Following the attack, the victim was taken to hospital where she underwent sex assault evidence collection and also gave descriptions of her attackers.

However, the kit sat untested in a state lab for years and – because the attackers were wearing hoods – the victim was unable to identify them.

Twelve years on, the kit was finally tested in February, finding Trudeau as a match to the DNA.

Bristol County District Attorney Thomas Quinn’s office said in a press release that the victim had been shocked to learn that the kit was not tested at the time as he said that the statute of limitations to charge Trudeau in the case would have expired in 2025.

The DA said that the suspect could have been arrested years earlier if the kit had been tested at the time, as Trudeau’s DNA has been on file since 2015.

Trudeau was convicted in 2015 on federal charges of attempting to travel out of state to have sex with a minor.

The 47-year-old exchanged graphic emails with a federal agent posing as a 13-year-old girl and made plans to travel to New York to meet her for sex.

This marks the first indictment to come from the DA’s commitment to fully test all 1,148 previously untested rape kits in the county under the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI).

DA Quinn filed for and was granted a federal grant in 2019 to embark on the vast efforts to test all untested kits in the county, after his office became aware of the years-long backlog.

“I am extremely pleased that our rape kit testing initiative has already resulted in indictments against this defendant for a cold case violent sexual assault committed more than a decade ago in New Bedford.  This case demonstrates the importance of fully testing all sexual assault kits. If we did not obtain the grant to have all these kits fully tested, this case never would have been solved and the statute of limitations would have expired,” he said in a statement.

“Victims who have been sexually assaulted have gone through a very traumatic experience and have a right to have these kits fully tested, especially when an assailant cannot be identified.”

Lawmakers and sexual violence survivor advocates have praised the DA’s office for leading the way in tackling the backlog and have called on other counties to follow in his footsteps.