
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, October 1, 1994                   TAG: 9410030034
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: FAIRFAX                                  LENGTH: Short

MAN, 75, NO LONGER CHARGED WITH RAPE

Rape and abduction charges against a 75-year-old man accused of attacking two women were dropped because of inconsistencies in the victims' stories, Fairfax County authorities said.

Anthony Grieco of Falls Church still faces a misdemeanor assault charge, reduced from felony abduction, stemming from a complaint by a 58-year-old Falls Church woman, Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr. said Thursday.

Grieco was charged in August with one count of rape and two counts of abduction in alleged assaults on two Falls Church women. One attack was alleged to have taken place in January and the other in August.

After his arrest, about 30 women called police with reports that they had been approached by Grieco. Horan said none of them said Grieco had attacked them ``or that he engaged in any criminal activity.''

``We do not have a 75-year-old serial rapist on our hands, and that's how he was portrayed,'' Horan said. ``It's a sad case.''

Investigators dropped the rape charge Tuesday when they learned that a woman, who said she was abducted from an Arlington Boulevard bus stop and raped Jan. 11, made subsequent statements to police that she had consensual sex with Grieco twice after the alleged incident. Horan also said the woman's story about the alleged attack was inconsistent.

Police reduced the abduction charge to misdemeanor assault in the second case ``because basically they had a fight,'' Horan said.

by CNB