Plea deal reached in Baltimore County Circuit Court in six cold-

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Oct 7, 2008 by Danny Jacobs

Six years ago, Laura Neuman sat steps away from Alphonso W. Hill as he pleaded guilty to second-degree rape for his October 1983 attack on her in her Baltimore apartment.

Neuman again sat steps away from Hill again Monday in Baltimore County Circuit Court. This time, however, she was an observer as Hill reached an agreement with prosecutors to serve an additional 60 years in prison for six more rapes in Parkville and Towson cold cases dating from 1978 to 1989.

Hill, 56, will be formally sentenced Nov. 12, when his victims will make impact statements.

Neuman is spending the year traveling the country with her family, but flew in from California for Monday's hearing and will be back next month.

"I will be here every step of the way. I want Alphonso Hill to know I will never stand down," Neuman said following the hearing.

Hill pleaded guilty to six counts of first-degree rape in exchange for various other charges in the cases being dropped. He will receive six 60-year concurrent sentences as part of the plea agreement. The sentences will run consecutively to the 15-year term Hill is currently serving for the attack on Neuman.

Hill spoke in a quiet, raspy voice when questioned from the witness stand by Judge Dana M. Levitz about the agreement. Asked if anyone had coerced him to plea, Hill quickly responded.

"Just my conscience," he said.

Assistant State's Attorney Jason League then read aloud the facts in each case. Hill attacked a woman in July 1978 in the laundry room of a Donachie Road apartment complex. That November, he forced a woman into the woods as she took the trash out at her Collinsdale Road apartment.

Two months later Hill forced his way into another Collinsdale Road apartment after asking the woman who answered the door if she called a cab. In September 1979 he forced a woman into the woods as she was walking back to Goucher College from a bar.

On Dowling Court in June 1983, and on Acorn Circle in March 1989, Hill's victims awoke to find Hill on top of them in their beds.

Hill used a gun or a knife to threaten his victims, League said. He put washcloths in the mouths of several, he said.

All of the victims were treated at Greater Baltimore Medical Center, which saved physical evidence of the attacks with forensic kits. County detectives obtained a warrant for Hill's DNA in August 2007, and he was indicted one month later based on the DNA evidence.

Testing results in the six cases indicated the odds of a match with another black man ranged from one in 8 quadrillion to 1.9 quintillion, League said. Earth's population is only 6.7 billion, a fact League said prosecutors would have mentioned had the case gone to trial.

Neuman, who sat with her husband and leaned forward during the proceedings, said she was disappointed the case did not go to trial because the strong evidence might have led to a harsher sentence should Hill have been convicted. But it also might have been "traumatic" for the victims to relive their ordeals in court, she said.

"It's hard enough to live through it every day," Neuman said. "What he did to me and the other women is a life sentence."

Several of the women contacted Neuman through her Laura Neuman Foundation, which she started in 2003 to advocate for rape and sexual assault victims. League said Monday afternoon only one of the six women has said she will not be in court next month but will submit a victim impact statement instead; he believed a "majority" would either be in court or write a statement.

Said Neuman: "It's going to be a very emotional day."