Arrest Made In ‘Georgetown Cuddler’ Case Years After Series Of Rapes Near Campuses

A man who police believe is a notorious sexual predator who broke into the homes of numerous young women near the Georgetown and University of Maryland campuses and raped them while they slept has been arrested.

Ernesto Mercado, 54, was charged in connection with five home-invasion sexual assaults from 2008 to 2012 in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The Metropolitan Police Department in Washington said that his DNA also connected him to a sixth attack in Maryland in 2009.

His arrest marks a huge break for cold case investigators trying to identify the man known as the “Georgetown Cuddler,” a nickname that spread among students even as it was widely criticized for seeming to downplay the seriousness of the attacks.

A detective with the Metropolitan Police Department condemned the “cuddler” term in a news conference Wednesday and said it caused additional harm to the victims.

“This man is a predator, and his intent was not to ‘cuddle’ his victims. Instead, his intent was to rape them. And it was only when they would wake up that the assault would end and he would flee,” MPD detective Alexander Mac Bean said.

HuffPost reached out to the attorney listed on court documents as representing Mercado but did not receive an immediate response.

Investigators said that DNA collected in the victims’ sexual assault forensic exams was analyzed in the FBI’s national database of DNA profiles and was determined to belong to the same man. Because he didn’t have a criminal history, however, they couldn’t identify him.

Mercado was eventually identified using genetic genealogy techniques, among other tools, investigators said.

The crimes Mercado is charged with took place in June 2008, July 2009, February and August 2010,