Mattapan man sentenced in brutal home invasion case

By Andrew Ryan and John R. Ellement, Globe staff

A Mattapan man was sentenced today to 15 to 20 years in prison for a July 2006 home invasion in Revere in which a woman and four teenage girls were savagely attacked.

Eric Morale, 30, admitted that he raped three of the girls at gunpoint during the violent crime spree that began in Boston with an armed kidnapping. He pleaded guilty in Suffolk Superior Court to 18 felonies, including five rape charges, five counts of kidnapping, and five armed robbery charges.

After a plea agreement was reached between Suffolk County prosecutors and defense attorney Arnold Abelow, Judge Charles Spurlock imposed the sentence, which also includes five years of probation. The sentence will not begin until Morale completes a four- to five-year state prison sentence he is currently serving on an unrelated offense.

Spurlock said in court that if Morale had been given the maximum sentence on each charge, he would have served 13 life sentences followed by another 50 years of imprisonment.

Just before he was led away, Morale apologized to his victims.

"I just deeply wanted to say that I'm truly sorry for what occurred," he said. "I wish them the best in life."

Morale's victims had expressed a range of sentiments at the sentencing hearing. At least one said she forgave him, while another said she wished he had gotten the death penalty.

In court, First Assistant Suffolk District Attorney Joshua Wall said the crimes began when Morale and an unidentified accomplice spotted a 17-year-old girl walking with three friends in Boston's Hyde Park section. Morale fired a shot, the group began running, but Morale kidnapped the girl at gunpoint and forced her into a waiting red Toyota being driven by his accomplice.

Morale, Wall said, then raped the girl at gunpoint while the accomplice drove around Boston. The girl was then forced to disrobe and was raped by both men, also at gunpoint, Wall said.

Morale then pointed the gun at the girl and told her she would be killed if she did not lead them to money. The girl, who is from an unidentified suburb, did not know Boston very well and instead chose to lead the men to a Revere home where she thought the people might have what Morale was demanding, Wall said.

Morale and his accomplice snuck into the house around 5:30 a.m. where a mother, Bonnie Mehlinger, her then-14-year-old daughter and two 15-year-old girls were sleeping. All four were physically assaulted by the men -- Mehlinger suffered broken ribs -- and the two 15-year-olds were raped, according to Wall and a 2006 Globe interview with Mehlinger.

The 17-year-old managed to escape and summoned Revere police from a nearby home. Morale and his accomplice avoided police, but Morale was captured within two days as he tried to pawn some of the jewelry stolen from the Revere home, Wall said.

Mehlinger said during victim impact statements that the experience was so traumatic she had been hospitalized for treatment of depression, she feels unsafe wherever she goes, and she had lost her business.

"I think that you should have gotten the death penalty," she told Morale. The death penalty has not been legalized in Massachusetts.

• Comment
• Permalink
• Email