Thomas FieldsSTATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A three-time, 25-year-old rapist from Mariners Harbor could spend the rest of his life behind bars after a jury yesterday convicted him of sexually attacking a teen behind a church in his community.
Thomas Fields was found guilty of two counts of predatory sexual assault stemming from the Nov. 7, 2008, rape of an 18-year-old woman.
The jury in state Supreme Court, St. George, returned the verdict after deliberating five days.
Prosecutors said Fields attacked the victim around 2 a.m. as she walked home.
Fields put her in a chokehold and pulled her behind a church at the corner of Brabant Street and Harbor Road.
After the defendant raped her, the teen tried to flee. Fields grabbed her and forced her to perform a sex act, said prosecutors.
The defendant initially eluded cops who responded to a 911 call.
When police arrived, Fields told the officers, "It's cool. She's my girl," according to a law enforcement source.
A witness previously told the Advance he saw Fields run out of the fenced-in area where he had dragged the teen, then along Brabant, with officers in pursuit.
He left behind a yellow jacket emblazoned with the cartoon face of Sylvester the Cat, cops said.
Fields remained on the lam for five days, until cops received a tip on the NYPD hotline that led to his arrest.
Afterward, the victim identified Fields in a lineup. Sources said he still bore two prong marks from an iPod charger she had jabbed into his neck while trying to fight him off.
Prosecutors said Fields was convicted in 2001 of two prior rapes committed when he was 15 years old.
Although charged as an adult in those cases, Fields legally had to be sentenced as a juvenile offender because of his age, prosecutors said. He was sentenced to the maximum of three and one-third to 10 years in prison before being released on parole in November 2007, a year before the latest crime.
Those convictions allowed Fields to be charged as a sexual predator in the latest case.
The defendant could receive anywhere from a minimum of 10 years flat to a maximum of 25 years to life in prison, when sentenced April 16.
District Attorney Daniel Donovan expressed hope that Justice Stephen J. Rooney would throw the book at Fields.
"This was a brutal crime from a career sexual predator," said Donovan. "He has forfeited his right to live in free society and deserves every day of what hopefully will amount to a life sentence."
Fields' lawyer could not immediately be reached yesterday for comment.
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