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Acorn reporter Makena Huey provides an overview of the Ventura County Sexual Assault Kit Initiative.

Ventura County Star reporter Cheri Carlson provides an overview of the Ventura County Sexual Assault Kit Initiative.

A Colorado man was arraigned Tuesday in Ventura County Superior Court on suspicion of raping multiple victims in Simi Valley and Los Angeles after newly gathered DNA evidence connected him to the cases, according to the Ventura County District Attorney's Office.

Charles Edward Gaines III, 26, of Aurora, Colorado, was charged with seven different felony sex crimes, including forcible rape with a weapon, trafficking of a minor and rape of a minor over 14 years old. He did not enter a plea during his appearance.

The Simi Valley Police Department said Gaines would often meet his victims via online dating applications, where his profile would be listed under the names Chris, Christopher or C.J. The crimes occurred in 2019 and 2020.

The cases were considered unrelated until August, when authorities served an arrest warrant for an unrelated extortion case out of Los Angeles. Gaines, who had relocated to Colorado, was arrested by the Aurora Police Department and had a DNA profile taken in accordance with the warrant.

The DNA matched evidence gathered from a Simi Valley sexual assault kit in 2020, which alerted prosecutors within the DA's new cold case sexual assault unit. The unit formed earlier this year thanks to a grant issued through the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, a federal program aimed at working through a backlog of kits and prosecuting sexual assault cold cases. The DNA also matched evidence from multiple rape cases out of Los Angeles.

Gaines, who had been released from custody, was arrested again and has since been extradited to Ventura County, where he was booked into county jail late Sunday, according to online records.

A federal grant will help Ventura County authorities clear a backlog of sexual assault evidence kits and launch a new cold-case unit.