Richmond Hill Man Sentenced for Rapes

17 Years in Prison for Two Area Assaults

A Richmond Hill man has been sentenced to 17 years in prison for committing two rapes, which he was linked to through DNA found by police during a search of his house during an unrelated narcotics investigation.

Peter J. Grebinger, Jr., 42, of 85-88 87th Street, was sentenced by Queens Supreme Court Justice James Griffin last Friday. He pleaded guilty to first-degree rape in April in connection with attacks he committed in Ozone Park and Hillside in 1997.

The first incident occurred on January 3, 1997 when Grebinger accosted a 33-year-old woman near 87-18 101st Avenue as she was walking to the subway at about 7:30 a.m. He forced the woman into a building where he raped her and demanded money before fleeing.

The second attack occurred on December 28, 1997 when Grebinger picked up a 22-year-old woman who flagged down his vehicle at about 6:20 a.m., believing it was a livery cab. He assaulted her inside the vehicle before kicking her out of the car and fleeing. Both victims went to local hospitals where sexual assault evidence and DNA was collected.

However, Grebinger wasn’t tied to the crimes until last year, when police searched the 87th Street home he shared with his father in Richmond Hill. As part of an unrelated investigation, police found two loaded firearms along with cocaine and marijuana while executing a court-authorized search warrant.

Grebinger and his 62-year-old father, Peter Grebinger, Sr., were charged in connection with the firearms and narcotics. Following his arrest, the younger Grebinger provided a DNA sample in accordance with state law. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner later matched Grebinger’s DNA to evidence recovered from the two rape victims, leading to the charges against him.

“Law enforcement has always had the tenacity to go back and attempt to resolve unsolved crimes. With DNA fingerprinting, we now have the technology to effectively do so,” said District Attorney Richard Brown. “This defendant is a violent predator and today’s sentence will protect the law-abiding members of our society from his brutish behavior and, hopefully, provide his victims with a measure of closure after so many years. It will also avoid the necessity of the defendant’s victims having to relive their ordeals on the witness stand.”