This article written and submitted by our member Dakota_Valkyrie.  Welcome to the front page, DV!

Brooklyn, NY - The 2008 Olympics are in full swing and even the Dreamin’ Demon has an Olympic athlete!  Alvin Henry was a member of the Trinidad and Tobago track team in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Now he’s pleaded guilty in Brooklyn to rape charges which didn’t earn him a medal but did get him 21 years in prison. 
Henry is accused of raping and sexually abusing five women in New York City parks and has been called the “Lover’s Lane Rapist”. He earned the title for attacking women just after he spied them doing what some couples in love do in parks.

Since 2003, the NYPD had been looking to give the rapist a silver medal in the form of handcuffs.

The Lover’s Lane Rapist struck first in the summer of 2003 with a rape and an attempted rape in area parks. At the time, Henry was in the United States looking for work. Relatives he was staying began to suspect he wasn’t on the track. No one likes a creepy cousin who says things like ‘Oh! you’re sexy! I want to take you out’. They really didn’t appreciate it when he made advances to a 12 year old family member and sent him packing back to Trinidad. By 2007, he had returned to the US and the Lover’s Lane Rapist was back in training. Three more rapes were reported that linked with the 2003 cases.

If they had medals in a serial rapist event, Henry may have won a gold for his efforts in the 2007 rape of a 15-year-old girl. He approached her and said had videotaped her having sex with her boyfriend in the park. With Henry threatening to put the images on the Internet if she did not go quietly, she went along. He thought she was the real deal and later sent her a text message asking to see her again. She wasn’t going for a medal in stupidity and called the cops.

Detectives, along with the girl, staked out Prospect Park where she easily picked out Henry from the selection of lurkers there. While a lineup isn’t exactly like the Olympic podiums and they didn’t play any national anthems, he got to stand there while everyone stared at him. “Everyone” being some of his other victims who had no problem identifying him.

A judge ordered a psychological exam which concluded he was unfit to stand trial. As an athlete, Henry knew the importance of staying fit and eventually got himself back into shape. He entered pleas of guilt in both Brooklyn and Queens courts.

As in all Olympics, the judges seem to cause some kind of controversy. Henry earlier pleaded guilty to rape in Queens court and was sentenced to 20 years. Despite objections from the prosecutor, the judge in the Brooklyn case ruled that the sentences run concurrently.

Officials from the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee said that Henry had once been a promising athlete and showed tremendous potential at one time. His lawyer said he got caught up in a lot of things after someone introduced him to cocaine to give him an edge while training.

It’s a good thing that Alvin Henry was an Olympian in Track & Field. Running in circles is one of the few activities he will be able to practice in prison.