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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Thursday, December 18, 2008

'Sexual predator' facing 60 years

By Jim Dooley
Advertiser Staff Writer

Prosecutors will seek a 60-year prison sentence for convicted rapist Mark Heath, calling him a "sexual predator" who assaulted University of Hawai'i coeds in their dorm rooms and a Waikiki woman in her Ala Wai Boulevard apartment.

Heath, 21, pleaded no contest yesterday morning to burglary and second-degree sexual assault in the Waikiki attack on April 7, 2007.

He pleaded guilty in May to charges of sexually assaulting a UH student and burglarizing three dorm rooms in August and November 2007.

He will be sentenced in March by Circuit Judge Dexter Del Rosario.

"He looks like someone you'd want your daughter to marry," Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Thalia Murphy said outside court yesterday, adding that Heath was a predator who went on a crime spree.

In the August assault, Heath crept into a UH dorm room and used a pair of scissors to cut off the underwear of a sleeping 18-year-old student.

The victim woke up and screamed, and Heath told police later he pushed her down and fled through a fire escape door.

He also admitted to breaking into two rooms at Lokelani dormitory Nov. 25, 2007, and stealing items while students slept.

After admitting those crimes, Heath supplied a DNA sample that was used to match evidence collected from the Waikiki case.

Murphy told Del Rosario yesterday that Heath followed the Waikiki victim home and asked her if he could "sleep over."

She told him no, and shut the door on him, Murphy said.

Later that evening, she awoke as Heath was raping her, Murphy said.

In all of the cases, Murphy said, Heath gained entry to the residences because the front doors were unlocked.

Reach Jim Dooley at jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com.