An order by the Suffolk County Grand Jury for a suspected serial rapist’s DNA sample led to evidence linking him to a double rape in Brighton more than two years ago, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said today.

That detail emerged this morning as MARCOS COLONO (D.O.B. 11/21/77) was arraigned in Suffolk Superior Court on an eight-count indictment charging him with four counts of aggravated rape, two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, and single counts of home invasion and burglary while armed. The indictments were handed down Dec. 20.

“This is a reminder of the grand jury’s power,” Conley said. “It’s not just a mechanism for obtaining an indictment – it’s an investigative tool unlike any other, and it gets results.”

Suffolk Superior Court Clerk Magistrate Connie Wong set bail at $1 million cash – the amount recommended by Assistant District Attorney Holly Broadbent of Conley’s Sexual Assault Unit.

In arguing for high bail, Broadbent described the details of the incident, which unfolded on the evening of Sept. 21, 2008, at an apartment building on Commonwealth Avenue.

The victims were students at two local colleges at the time and shared the apartment with a third young woman, Broadbent said. When their front doorbell rang at about 8:00, they believed their third roommate had rung it and – because their intercom was not working – buzzed the person in.

Moments later, they heard a knock on their apartment door, Broadbent said. One woman opened it but didn’t see anyone in the hall. She turned to ask her roommate if she had heard anything.

“At that point, the door burst open and the defendant burst into the apartment brandishing a knife,” Broadbent told the court.

Telling the women he was going to rob them, Colono forced the victims into a bedroom at knifepoint and restrained them, Broadbent said. He allegedly returned a short time later and said he couldn’t find anything to take.

It was at that point, Broadbent said, that Colono “marched” the victims into a common room where he raped them both repeatedly. He then tied the victims up and took an identification card belonging to one of them.

“He told them not to contact the police because he knew who they were and where they lived,” Broadbent said.

The women were able to escape from their bonds and called Boston Police. Both were transported to an area hospital, where medical professionals conducted rape kits to gather and maintain any biological evidence.

The case was investigated by Boston Police and Suffolk prosecutors, but received its first major break when DNA recovered at the Commonwealth Avenue scene matched DNA recovered from the scene of another home invasion and sexual assault that took place in Cambridge on Aug. 26. That case was being investigated by Cambridge Police and the Middlesex DA’s office.

During their respective investigations, police detectives in Boston and Cambridge had uploaded the suspect DNA in both attacks to the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, which can link DNA profiles to known offenders or other unsolved cases. In this case, it linked the biological evidence from the Brighton and Cambridge crime scenes to a single unknown perpetrator.

Fingerprints recovered at the Cambridge crime scene, which were of greater detail than any found at the Brighton scene, were later linked to Colono through prints on file from an earlier arrest in Boston. Colono was arrested Oct. 26 and arraigned the same day by Middlesex County prosecutors assigned to the Cambridge rape case. He has been in custody since that time.

Broadbent said the Suffolk County Grand Jury issued an order for Colono’s DNA for testing against the biological evidence recovered in the Brighton victims’ rape kits. Colono provided a sample and “the defendant’s DNA was included as being the same as the DNA profile from the Sept. 21, 2008, attack,” Broadbent said.

Anne Kelley-McCarthy is the DA’s assigned victim-witness advocate. Colono is represented by attorney Kelly Porges.