Sentenced to 310 to 475 years in prison for raping two women, attempted escape and assaulting numerous correctional officers.
Damon Fitzgerald, a convicted rapist, was found guilty in January of 2007 on four counts of assault and weapons charges.
Fitzgerald often fought with Douglas County Corrections Department officers.
In late 2006, after one of these altercations, Damon Fitzgerald grabbed a handcuff key that had broken loose from an officer’s belt during that fight and hid it from corrections officials for a month.
When he was taken to a hospital, claiming he was spitting up blood, doctors found an interesting surprise during an X-ray.
Fitzgerald had hidden the handcuff key in his rectum for several months.
Prosecutors said Fitzgerald raped two women - one an 18-year-old babysitter who he held at knifepoint after he’d broken into her aunt’s home.
He has assaulted many correctional officers in addition to the escape attempt, prosecutors said, and so the 30-year-old was sentenced for 12 separate felonies.
Prosecutor Shelly Stratman asked for the maximum sentence and got 310 to 470 years in prison without the possibility of parole for 215 years.
His earliest possible release date is 2222.
“This is definitely an individual who should never be free to walk in society again,” said the prosecutor.
Fitzgerald told reporters that he was just trying to visit his mother.
Fitzgerald’s lawyer, Tom Olsen, said Fitzgerald is the victim of an abusive childhood. “Certainly it’s a sad, sad tragedy for everyone involved. I wish somewhere back in his youth something could have been done where maybe we could have prevented all of this tragedy,” Olsen said.
Douglas County officials could not remember a longer sentence in the county’s history.
Omaha will miss Mr. Damon Fitzgerald.
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See, see how sad his childhood was? It was so sad he had to physicaly and sexualy assault people. Yea, if only something could have been done to prevent him from becoming this monster.
Something like a condom.
Next thing I have to comment on is what kind of jail lets a guy hide a handcuff key in his ass for a month. How hard is it to take an xray of the guy and then go in after it? Do they let Barney Fife have a whole bullet in his pocket too?
Sounds kind of Keystone Cops to me.
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