After sitting through three days of testimony in his rape trial, a former Alabama corrections officer who assaulted at least two metro Atlanta women at gunpoint figured the evidence was stacked against him.
Matthew Moore, 50, pleaded guilty Thursday morning and was sentenced to three decades in prison. His guilty plea came as prosecutors finished playing cellphone video of the longtime corrections officer brutally raping a woman inside a Sandy Springs hotel room.
Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said Moore attacked his victims after meeting them online and arranging for “erotic massages.”
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While Moore pleaded guilty in the two rape cases, he’s suspected in at least three more, Howard said. And because his victims were sex workers, authorities believe many others were likely too afraid to come forward.
“It’s hard to believe that these are the only victims,” Howard said at a news conference. “We believe that there are probably many other women that Mr. Moore might have assaulted.”
Credit: SHADDI ABUSAID/ SABUSAID@AJC.COM
Credit: SHADDI ABUSAID/ SABUSAID@AJC.COM
The two women who testified against the former corrections officer this week were traumatized by what happened to them, Howard said, encouraging other potential victims to come forward and receive counseling.
“We don’t want people to get the impression that they don’t have anyone to turn to,” he said. “We will do something if you come in and make a report.”
Moore’s first Sandy Springs rape occurred at the Homestead Suites on Hammond Drive in June 2010. In that case, when the woman arrived, Moore identified himself as a police officer before flashing his badge, gun and a can of pepper spray, prosecutors said.
He then ordered his victim onto the bed and raped her while his gun sat nearby. After the assault, he wiped himself with a napkin, got dressed and left the room.
The woman called 911 to report the rape, and the napkin Moore left behind was collected as evidence.
More than five years later, Sandy Springs police responded to a similar call at the Hawthorne Suites along Barfield Road, authorities said.
In that case, Moore reached out to an escort who placed an online advertisement. The two agreed to meet.
MORE: Ex-officer accused in 'series of sexual assaults' in Sandy Springs, elsewhere
When he arrived at the hotel room, Moore brandished a gun and a knife before reportedly telling his victim, “You’re going to do everything I say tonight, or I’ll be the last person you see.”
After setting up his cellphone to record the incident, Moore zip-tied the woman’s arms behind her back and brutally raped her for more than 40 minutes, authorities said.
Several jurors openly wept in court Thursday morning as prosecutors played the video of Moore’s victim screaming and begging him to stop.
That woman was able to escape her captor after running across the room, opening the door and screaming for help, prosecutors said.
Three men who were in the hallway heard the commotion, but a naked Moore quickly exited the room and pointed a gun at them, authorities said. He forced the men to retrieve his cellphone from the room before leaving the hotel.
The victim went to a hospital for a sexual assault examination and investigators collected several items that Moore left behind, including a pair of handcuffs that were inscribed with the name of the Alabama jail where he worked.
He was arrested in 2018 after DNA evidence connected the two Sandy Springs cases to a 2008 sexual assault in Homewood, Alabama, a 2010 sexual assault in Cobb County and a 2010 assault in Birmingham, authorities said.
ALSO: Alabama jailer accused of raping Cobb, Fulton women has been indicted
Investigators searched Moore’s Alabama home and recovered zip-ties, restraints, computers, sex toys and the 2015 rape video, which was still on his cellphone, prosecutors said.
After that video was played in court, the judge asked Moore if he still wished to continue with his trial. That’s when he decided to plead guilty.
Moore is also charged in Cobb County in connection with a February 2010 sexual assault that occurred at a Cumberland-area apartment complex, but he hasn’t been indicted there, a spokeswoman for the Cobb DA’s office said.
Sandy Springs police Sgt. William Johnson said it’s unclear when Moore began targeting women, adding it’s possible there are still untested rape kits out there that could link him to additional sexual assaults.
As for Moore’s decision to target sex workers, Johnson said he picked women he believed he could control, women he believed would be too afraid to go to the police.
“He believed they didn’t matter, but they did,” Johnson said.
Moore pleaded guilty to rape, aggravated sodomy, false imprisonment, impersonating an officer, aggravated sexual battery and aggravated assault. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison and the rest of his life on probation.
Had he not, Moore faced life in prison without the possibility of parole, Howard said.
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