By Erica Thomas, managing editor
ATLANTA — After three days on trial for the violent rape of two women in Georgia, a former Alabama corrections officer pleaded guilty to several charges.
Matthew Moore, 50, pleaded guilty on Thursday, Jan. 30, 2020, to rape, aggravated sodomy, false imprisonment, impersonating an officer, aggravated sexual battery and aggravated assault. He was sentenced to life in prison to serve 30 years and life on parole.
Fulton County District Attorney Paul L. Howard Jr. said Moore changed his plea in the middle of his trial in Fulton County Superior Court.
Howard’s office said in 2010, Moore met an Atlanta woman online and planned to meet up for an erotic massage. When the two met at a hotel in Sandy Springs, Georgia, Howard said Moore identified himself as a police officer and proceeded to rape the woman.
“Moore then wiped himself with a napkin, got dressed, and left the hotel room,” the DA’s office said in a report.
In 2015, Howard said Moore raped a woman he met online and recorded the brutal rape with his phone. According to the DA, during the rape and sodomy of the woman, Moore told her, “You’re going to do everything I say tonight, or I’ll be the last person you see.”
“The defendant proceeded to orally, vaginally, and anally rape and sodomize the victim with his hands and penis for more than 40 minutes,” the DA’s report stated.
The suspect left behind handcuffs that were inscribed with the name of the Alabama jail where he worked, according to the District Attorney. Investigators said after they tracked him down three years later, the video of the rape was still on his phone.
Both victims in Georgia were able to get away and seek treatment at a hospital.
In 2017, DNA collected from the 2019 rape was connected to a 2008 sexual assault in Homewood, Alabama, a 2010 sexual assault in Birmingham, and to a 2010 sexual assault in Cobb County.
In 2018, DNA connected Moore to the crimes, as well as a sexual assault in Jupiter, Florida, that happened on March 7, 2018, and crimes in Fulton County.