FBI Cleveland
Public Affairs Officer Susan Licate
September 3, 2014

Convicted Killer Indicted for Three Rapes

This press release was issued by the Office of the Cuyahoa County Prosecutor.

Contact: Joseph Frolik, Director of Communications and Public Policy, at 216-443-7488.

Convicted murderer Kelly Foust has been indicted for the rapes of three women between 1998 and 2001, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty announced today.

The Grand Jury returned its indictment on August 14, but it had been kept under seal until a co-defendant, Jose M. Santiago-Perez, was apprehended in Cleveland Tuesday by the FBI Violent Crime Task Force.

Foust, 37, is charged with four counts of Rape, three counts of kidnapping, two counts of Sexual Battery and one count each of Attempted Rape, Gross Sexual Imposition and Robbery. The attacks on the three women took place in 1998, 2000 and 2001.

Foust was tied to the 1998 attack on an 18-year-old victim by DNA evidence in a rape kit recently tested by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation as part of Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine’s Sexual Assault Kit Initiative. Follow-up investigation was performed by Cuyahoga County’s DNA Cold Case Task Force.

The other two rapes had been indicted previously but were dismissed without prejudice after Foust was convicted in 2002 of raping a fourth woman, murdering her father and setting fire to their home. Foust was sentenced to death.

Foust’s conviction on the aggravated murder and related charges has been repeatedly upheld on appeal. In 2012, a federal appeals court affirmed the conviction, but ordered a new sentencing phase. Foust remains incarcerated at Chillicothe Correctional Institution.

The newly unsealed indictment also charges Jose M. Santiago-Perez with Rape, Gross Sexual Imposition, Robbery and Kidnapping along with Foust in the 2000 attack on a 37-year-old victim. A warrant for Santiago-Perez, 39, was issued after the indictment, and he was arrested by Tuesday, September 2.

Santiago-Perez is the brother of Elias Acevedo, who was entered a plea of guilty last December to a 297-count indictment that encompassed two murders and 175 counts of rape. Acevedo was sentenced to consecutive sentences of 20 years to life on the murders, plus an additional 405 years for the non-homicide offenses. Santiago-Perez’s last known address was a house on Seymour Avenue where evidence related to his rape with Kelly Foust was obtained.