Serial rapist sentenced to 36 years to life

KENT — A serial rapist accused of sexually assaulting two teenage sisters after tying up their mother in a Federal Way apartment nearly three years ago was sentenced this morning to 36 years to life in prison.

Anthony Dias, 29, entered an Alford plea to several charges stemming from three separate incidents in King County in 2005, including the rape of the two girls and sexual assaults on four women. The plea means that though he did not admit guilt, Dias acknowledged he would likely be convicted if tried.

King County Superior Court Judge Brian Gain said Dias' sentence would be served concurrently with a lengthy prison term he received earlier this year for two rapes in Pierce County.

Dias is accused of committing several rapes and robberies in homes from Des Moines to Tacoma between August and November 2005. He was shot by police and arrested early Nov. 8, 2005, outside a Federal Way apartment after he tied up a woman with a dog leash and duct tape and raped her two teenage daughters — then 13 and 15.

According to prosecutors in King and Pierce counties, Dias ordered a number of his victims to bathe in an effort to wash away his DNA. But DNA evidence found on one victim's body, another's toothbrush and cigarette butts left at different crime scenes helped investigators tie Dias to six rape and burglary cases, they say.

Dias had also been accused breaking into a Federal Way-area apartment on Oct. 28, 2005, and binding and beating three men and forcing two women to perform sex acts.

Three days later, prosecutors said, Dias broke into a Des Moines house and used duct tape to bind six people, including a 2-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy, and repeatedly raping two sisters, ages 20 and 24.

In January 2006, while awaiting trial, Dias tried to hang himself with cloth strips torn from the mattress in his jail cell after reading a newspaper article saying his DNA had been tied to the Pierce County rapes, according to a Pierce County sheriff's spokesman. Guards intervened and Dias was treated at a local hospital and returned to the jail.

Dias was sentenced in May to 227 years in prison for breaking into three homes in the Tacoma area in 2005 and raping two women.

Natalie Singer: 206-464-2704 or nsinger@seattletimes.com