Rape victim comes face-to-face with accused attacker in Tampa courtroom – 20 years later

TAMPA, Fla. - For 20 agonizing years, a Tampa rape victim said she stared into the eyes of strangers and wondered if he was the one who attacked her.

"He was just a guy in the neighborhood. I mentioned his name, I mentioned a lot of names because I never really knew who did it," the victim said tearfully in court. "I didn't know for twenty years."

Prosecutors say the man who attacked her all those years ago is 41-year-old Antonio Rivers.

At his trial Monday, the victim told the jury what he did.

Antonio Rivers in court on June 13, 2022.

"He had a gun in his hand, and I didn't want to die," she recalled.

She said on the night of Dec. 17, 2000, she had returned home around 10:30 p.m. and walked in on armed robber who broken in through a window.

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The victim said he was wearing a mask and pointed a gun at her demanding money.

When she told him she didn't have any, that’s when she said he forced her into the bathroom and sexually assaulted her.

"I was just praying, 'Please don't kill me, please don’t kill me,'" she testified.

Tampa police were able to collect fingerprints and DNA from the victim, but the lead investigators admitted on the stand that some of the samples during testing were separated and mishandled – which the defense was quick to point out.

The case went cold for two decades until 2020, when there was a DNA hit in the database that pointed directly at Antonio Rivers.

According to a police report, the victim remembered someone by that same name had sent her taunting messages on Facebook back in 2014.

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Now all these years later, she was coming face-to-face with the man investigators say was behind the mask.

Rivers is charged with two counts of sexual battery with a firearm and armed burglary.

The jury is expected to begin deliberating Tuesday.