Local doctor pleads guilty to making false statements related to 1989 rape

DAYTON, Ohio - A Sycamore Township man whose DNA implicated him in a 1989 rape pleaded guilty today to making false statements to federal agents.

Frederick Louis Tanzer, 66, admitted to three counts of the crime, each punishable by up to five years in prison.

Tanzer's plea documents detail that on Aug. 1, 1989, Tanzer broke into a victim's home in Cincinnati and violently raped the victim over the course of five and a half hours. Tanzer, masked and dressed from head to toe in black Lycra, held a knife to the victim's throat, dragged her into her bedroom, blindfolded her with surgical tape, bound her hands and feet to her bed frame, and then repeatedly raped her vaginally, anally and orally.

In 2024, the FBI, working with the Cincinnati Police Department, confirmed Tanzer's DNA matched the semen left by the victim's attacker in 1989.

When approached about the rape, the defendant made several materially false statements to a federal agent and a Cincinnati Police Department detective, including denying having seen or interacted with the victim on the date she was raped.

Tanzer was arrested in December 2024 and will remain in custody pending sentencing.

Dominick S. Gerace II, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio; Elena Iatarola, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Cincinnati Division; and Cincinnati Police Chief Teresa A. Theetge announced the guilty plea entered today before U.S. District Judge Michael J. Newman. The IRS-Criminal Investigation Cincinnati Field Office assisted in the investigation. Assistant United States Attorneys Kelly K. Rossi and Julie D. Garcia are representing the United States in this case.

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