South End man faces life in prison

Michael Johnson, 41, was convicted Thursday in Suffolk Superior Court of raping the women in April and May of 1990.

He is already serving four sentences that will keep him in prison until 2039. After those sentences are completed, his sentence in the South End rapes would begin.

In addition to his 17-to-20 year sentence for aggravated rape, Johnson was sentenced today to a concurrent term of 15 to 20 years for rape, and to 7 years of probation after his release for assault with intent to rape.

Prosecutors said Johnson broke into a 23-year-old woman's apartment on Wellington Street on the morning of April 10, 1990 and raped her after binding her hands behind her back and covering her face with a towel.

He broke into a West Concord Street apartment on May 7 of that year at about 1 a.m., prosecutors also said, and held two women, ages 24 and 30, at knifepoint, raping one before the other woman struck him with a fireplace poker and he fled.

Johnson was convicted in another home invasion in 2003, and DNA from that case tied him to the earlier attacks, prosecutors said.

Travis Andersen of the Globe staff contributed to this report.