KC man accused of raping, robbing women faces 20 charges. Police suspect more survivors
Jackson County prosecutors on Friday announced 20 felony charges against a man accused of raping two women and robbing a third, and Kansas City police urged other potential survivors to come forward.
Dairon Lee Riley, 23, was charged in Jackson County Circuit Court with a host of charges for crimes allegedly committed in May and June. If convicted of the charges, which include five counts of rape or attempted rape, Riley faces a sentence of life in prison.
At a news conference with other officials, Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves said detectives believe other survivors are out there.
“This is your courthouse,” Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said, directed to the alleged victims in the case and also to other rape and sexual assault survivors in the county. She added that police and prosecutors want to hear “what they have to tell us.”
The first alleged robbery occurred May 17 after Riley picked up a woman he met online from a hotel in Independence, according to the criminal complaint. She planned to sell Riley a phone, and they went to the area of East 89th Terrace and Michigan Avenue.
There, the woman told police, Riley pulled out a knife and turned off her phone’s location data. She believed she heard him masturbating, police said. He took the woman’s phone, her taser and $200 cash, according to charging documents.
Less than a week later, officers were sent to meet a woman at a hospital. She said she met Riley on a dating site and that he had punched her in the face, repeatedly sexually assaulted her and tried to tase her, according to court records.
Riley allegedly took the woman’s gun, which he used to fire off a round, and her phone, according to police.
About three weeks after that, on June 17, officers were called to an armed robbery at a QuikTrip gas station along Westport Road, where a woman told them she had been sexually assaulted.
The woman said she met Riley on a dating application, where he went by “Day Day,” police said. When they met in person, she said, Riley was armed with a knife and gun and threatened to kill her. Riley struck the woman in the face while they were in a parked car, police said. He raped her and stole her phone and money, according to prosecutors.
Riley remains at the Jackson County Detention Center on a $500,000 bond. He did not yet have an attorney listed in court records who could be reached for comment as of Friday afternoon.
Julie Donelon, president of the Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault, said at Friday’s news conference that survivors of rape and sexual assault can reach the nonprofit’s free and confidential services by calling 816-531-0233.
