Rapist who posed as policeman gets 25-50 years

A South Philadelphia man will spend the next 25 to 50 years in prison after pleading guilty to raping or assaulting six women he lured into his car, where he then handcuffed them as he posed as a police officer.

Salvatore Longo, 42, pleaded guilty Monday before Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Rayford A. Means on what was to have been the first day of jury selection in his trial.

Assistant District Attorney Carolyn Naylor said Longo and attorney Samuel Alboum agreed to a plea deal in which Longo would serve 25 to 50 years if he pleaded guilty to all six assaults between September 2007 and January 2008.

Naylor said Longo admitted raping and kidnapping five of the six victims. One escaped from his car. He was also charged with attempted murder for putting a plastic bag over one victim's head. Naylor said the woman escaped suffocating by chewing a hole in the bag.

Authorities said the six women worked as prostitutes and were stopped by Longo as he cruised South Philadelphia and Kensington in his red 2001 Pontiac Grand Am.

The women got into Longo's car believing he wanted sex. Instead, authorities said, Longo identified himself as police, showed a bogus badge, and handcuffed them in the back of the car.

Longo then drove the victims to a secluded location where he sexually assaulted them, sometimes at gunpoint, police said.

Longo, who has been held on $250,000 bail since his arrest early last year, was effectively sentenced Monday.

But he will return Dec. 21 for one further hearing, Naylor said, after a so-called Megan's Law assessment to decide if he should be classified as a "sexually violent predator."

If that typing is recommended and Means agrees to it, Longo's sentence would not be affected. Rather, the classification would govern where he could live and his police registration and reporting rules if he is ever released.

Police arrested Longo about a week after the abduction of a 20-year-old woman about 12:30 a.m. Jan. 30, 2008, as she walked near Kensington Avenue and Westmoreland Street.

The woman was handcuffed and sexually assaulted in the back of the car on Front Street under I-95 in South Philadelphia. She escaped and alerted residents.