South Boston man charged with child rape and Andrew Square bank robbery

A man already locked up for malicious destruction of property was charged with more serious crimes this week: Raping and abusing the same child several times a few years ago and robbing an Andrew Square bank last fall, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

Police knew just where to go to arrest Vicente Lomba, 30, this week, because he was sitting in a Suffolk County jail, to which he'd been sentenced just last week on the malicious-destruction charge, according to the DA's office.

Prosecutors charged Lomba "repeatedly sexually assaulted a young child who was known to him" at a South Boston home between 2015 and 2019. He's also charged with showing pornographic materials to the child. Formally, he was charged with two counts of aggravated rape of a child, two counts of indecent assault and battery on a child and one count of dissemination of material harmful to a minor.

When not allegedly attacking the child, he allegedly went after a woman on the Red Line at Andrew Square in 2019, as well as other passengers on another Red Line train.

According to the DA's office, police began their investigation into the child rape even as they were investigating him for a robbery at an East Boston Savings Bank branch on Southampton Street last Oct. 26, from which he made off with $1,030.

The DA's office says that both a BPD officer and an FBI agent who had had past dealings with him quickly identified him from surveillance photos. Members of the public who also recognized him from the photos also identified him to police.

At his arraignment, South Boston District Court Judge Pamela Dashiell set bail at $12,000, although even if he makes that, he won't be going anywhere because of his current jail sentence.

Innocent, etc.