Man Convicted in Rape of Woman in 2019

Oct. 14, 2021 – A jury took less than an hour Wednesday to convict a man of raping a 50-year-old woman outside an apartment in 2019 in South Memphis, said Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Amy Weirich.

     The Criminal Court jury convicted Frederick Leon Peat, 43, of aggravated rape following a three-day trial. He will be sentenced on Nov. 15 by Judge Carolyn Blackett.

    According to testimony, the victim was looking for an acquaintance in the early-morning hours of April 24, 2019, at an apartment near Georgia Avenue and South 4th Street. She said a man approached her, indicated that he had a gun in his pocket and ordered to a location behind the apartments where he raped her on a mattress.

    A DNA sample from a sexual assault kit was entered into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) database and a match to Peat was reported in January of 2020. The victim later identified Peat from a photospread.

    The case was handled by Asst. Dist. Attys. Dru Carpenter and Jermal Blanchard of the District Attorney’s Special Victims Unit (SVU) that prosecutes cases involving rape, child sexual abuse, severe physical abuse of child victims, elder abuse, and vulnerable-adult abuse.