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A Union County grand jury returned a seventeen-count indictment against Terence Rhue charged in two violent sexual assaults which occurred in both Plainfield and Westfield in October 2021, Union County Prosecutor William A. Daniel said.
Rhue is charged with three counts of first-degree aggravated sexual assault, two counts of second-degree sexual assault, three counts of third-degree aggravated criminal sexual contact, two counts of third-degree possession of a weapon for unlawful purposes and two counts of fourth-degree unlawful possession of a weapon as a result of the attacks on a two separate woman. In addition, Rhue is also charged with one count each of first-degree robbery, second-degree burglary, third-degree terroristic threats, and fourth-degree criminal mischief in connection with the Westfield sexual assault, Daniel said.
On October 4, 2021, at approximately 8:40 p.m., officers from the Plainfield Police Department were alerted that a sexual assault had occurred near Randolph Road in Plainfield. Police spoke to the female victim who described being forcibly grabbed, punched and then sexually assaulted at knifepoint in the parking lot of an apartment complex after she exited her car, according to Union County Assistant Prosecutor Caroline Lawlor, who is prosecuting the case. The suspect then fled.
Then, on October 19, Westfield police responded to Forest and Longfellow Avenues at approximately 12:50 p.m. in response to a report of a sexual assault by an armed intruder, Lawlor said.
There, a female victim told police she had returned home after being out and upon entering her house, she was confronted by a male with a knife who proceeded to sexually assault her. The assailant then took a number of valuables from the home before fleeing the scene, Lawler said.
An exhaustive investigation led by the Union County Special Victims Unit, the Plainfield Police Department and the Westfield Police Department and assisted by the Union County Sheriff’s Office Crime Scene Unit, the New Jersey State Police Regional Operations Intelligence Center (R.O.I.C.), as well as the Scotch Plains and Fanwood Police Departments, resulted in the identification of Rhue as the suspect and led to his eventual capture and arrest two days after the Westfield attack.
Rhue was being held in the Essex County Jail.
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