Sentence upheld for convicted Rockview rapist

Omar Best’s three life sentences will stand.

In a decision handed down Wednesday, the state Superior Court reaffirmed Centre County Judge Bradley Lunsford’s ruling on the convicted rapist.

Best, 38, was found guilty in May 2014 of the violent rape and strangulation of a young female clerk at Rockview state prison. The litany of charges against him included a laundry list of felonies like rape by forcible compulsion, aggravated assault, aggravated assault of an enumerated person, rape of an unconscious victim and sexual assault, as well as misdemeanor simple assault.

At trial, Centre County District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller showed Best pursued his victim for weeks leading up to the attack and orchestrated the assault by pretending he had a work detail that put him in the vicinity until he had the opportunity to isolate her in her manager’s office.

“Quite frankly, you are probably the most dangerous defendant I have ever had in this courtroom,” Lunsford told Best at sentencing in September 2014. The Superior Court’s ruling upholds Lunsford’s decision on three concurrent life sentences followed by 10 to 20 additional years.

Parks Miller called Best’s life, which included a 23-year-long history of rape, robbery and aggravated assault, “a picture of savagery.”

The brutal assault had an impact on Rockview as well as the victim. Within months of the July 2013 attack, the prison’s superintendent was removed. The state Department of Corrections was sued by both the victim and another employee, who claimed she initiated safety concerns before the rape occurred but was rebuffed.

The victim settled with DOC in December 2014 for $3.3 million.

Best, who has at least six other known names, was committed to Rockview following an assault in Philadelphia. He was relocated after the Rockview assault and is an inmate at Huntingdon state prison.

This story was originally published December 23, 2015 at 7:04 PM with the headline "Sentence upheld for convicted Rockview rapist."