A serial rapist convicted by a Pima County jury in 2019 after he came under suspicion via DNA testing of old rape kits has until the end of the month to petition the Arizona Supreme Court for review of his 21 convictions and 260-year prison sentence.
Nathan Larry Joseph Loebe was convicted by a jury of 12 counts of sexual assault and 5 counts of kidnapping by restraint, as well as stalking and attempt to commit sexual assault. His charges involved seven women who were assaulted between May 2003 and May 2015.
Loebe, 41, has a release date of May 27, 2268, according to the Arizona Department of Corrections.
On appeal, Loebe argued he was denied “a fair trial process” because a Pima County judge refused to conduct separate trials for each of the named victims. The trial judge had ruled separate trials were not necessary as the jurors would have heard evidence of Loebe’s misconduct with other victims when the prosecutor tried to show Loebe had “a character trait giving rise to an aberrant sexual propensity to commit” each charge.
A three-judge appellate panel began reviewing Loebe’s arguments in March, but there was then a two month delay while sealed documents from Pima County Superior Court were obtained. The appellate memorandum decision affirming all 21 felony convictions and sentences was formally announced May 28.
“We view the facts in the light most favorable to upholding the jury’s verdicts,” Judge Sean Brearcliffe wrote in the decision. “Loebe claims that, because there was not clear and convincing evidence that he had committed the sexual assaults and there was not a reasonable basis to infer he had an aberrant sexual propensity, non-severance was prejudicial. However, there were significant similarities among all incidents…despite the time between incidents.”
The decision leaves Loebe with a deadline of June 28 to petition the Arizona Supreme Court to review his case.
Court records show Loebe’s criminal history includes an 18-month prison term for a 2007 aggravated domestic violence. His DNA was collected at that time, but law enforcement officials had never tested the 2003 rape kit so he was not identified as a suspect at that time.
Loebe’s arrest in 2017 finally came about after the Tucson Police Department was awarded a $1 million grant to pay for DNA testing of than 1,000 previously untested rape kits dating back nearly two decades. Several of the kits flagged a match to Loebe’s DNA.
While Loebe was prosecuted for offenses against seven women, it is believed there were likely a few dozen more victims. One of those is a woman assaulted in Kentucky whose rape kit also matched to Loebe in 2017.
The Pima County Attorney’s Office and Pima County Sheriff’s Office received a grant for $2 million in 2019 to cover the expense of testing a few thousand more rape kits from across southern Arizona.