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Cab Driver Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison for Raping Passenger

 Gurmeet Singh was sentenced to 20 years in prison Monday for raping a woman he picked up in his cab in Williamsburg in 2011.
Gurmeet Singh was sentenced to 20 years in prison Monday for raping a woman he picked up in his cab in Williamsburg in 2011.
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NYPD

BROOKLYN — A taxi driver who raped a passenger after she fell asleep in his cab was sentenced to 20 years in prison Monday, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.

Gurmeet Singh, 42, picked up a 26-year-old passenger in Williamsburg who was heading home to lower Manhattan on May 6, 2011. When she fell asleep in the back of his cab he then drove her to his personal vehicle and moved her to his car where he proceeded to bind her arms and wrists with a scarf, stuff her mouth with paper towels and blindfold her, the Brooklyn District Attorney said. When the victim woke up Singh had a knife to her throat and raped her.

“The defendant had a duty to drive a young woman home, but instead he brutally raped her at knifepoint,” Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson said in a statement. “Today’s sentence ensures that this defendant will no longer be a threat to society or a danger to other unsuspecting women, and I only hope that the victim can find comfort and closure at this time.”

After assaulting the woman, Singh left her outside his car where she was able to flag down a bystander who called 911.

Detectives investigating the case posed as representatives of the Taxi and Limousine Commission and invited Singh into their office for a routine driving issue. They then offered him a glass of water, which they used to obtain his DNA, linking him to the assault.

A jury found the former cab driver guilty on May 2 of Rape in the First Degree and Kidnapping in the Second Degree as a Sexually Motivated Felony.

Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Miriam Cyrulnik sentenced him.