BOSTON — A Swampscott man charged with raping five women at gunpoint has had the charges dropped, according to a report in the Boston Globe Wednesday.
Suffolk County prosecutors said they could no longer prove the case against Joseph Losano, 53, a former U.S. Marine, because a judge ruled that photo identifications made by three of the alleged victims were inadmissible.
Losano was charged with picking up the women at the “Methadone Mile” on Massachusetts Avenue in Boston. Prosecutors said he allegedly told them he wanted to pay for sex, and then pulled a gun and sexually assaulted them, the Globe report said.
As part of the investigation into the charges, the women were shown several photos that included Losano and seven other men who were much younger than he was.
After hearing testimony from police and a defense expert, Judge Susan Sullivan called the photo array, “unnecessarily suggestive,” and that the pictures may have led to misidentification. She said that the sophisticated array of photos did not consider the age disparity between Losano and the others.
Four of the five alleged victims picked Losano out from the photo array, but Sullivan said prosecutors could not present any evidence at Losano’s trial related to the photo identifications made by the three women.