Man who pleaded guilty to raping three Towson University students receives 60-year sentence
A Baltimore County judge sentenced a man to 60 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to raping three college students at gunpoint in downtown Towson in February.
Quantze Davis, 29, pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree rape in September. Judge Judith C. Ensor sentenced Davis to 85 years in prison Tuesday with all but 60 years suspended.
“There is no vocabulary sufficient to describe the crime,” Ensor said. “There’s no way to make this right for the young women.”
Becoming choked up during the sentencing, Ensor said the three Towson University students had “literally been devastated.”
“They have been left to fight for their happiness and their future and they have done nothing to deserve this,” she said.
Ensor also said Davis seemed genuinely remorseful and that she believed his family members, who said he had acted toward them as a loving father, brother and son with a big heart.
According to charging documents, Davis walked up to three 18-year-old Towson University students late at night Feb. 2 in downtown Towson, drew a gun and demanded they give him cash.
Then he told them to turn their phones off and forced them to walk into an alley at gunpoint, where he made them kneel and sexually assaulted them. He ordered the young women to count to 100 as he fled. Davis also pointed his gun at two bystanders, charging documents said.
Police identified Davis using surveillance footage, which showed him using his phone to make a purchase at a store before the students encountered him. Investigators confirmed his identity using DNA from the crime scene and cellphone records, prosecutors said.
The rapes were among a spate of violence in Towson’s downtown shopping district early in 2023 that led to increased police patrols and security surveillance, although a Baltimore Sun data analysis showed that the area’s crime in 2022 only rebounded to 2019 levels after declining during the first two years of the coronavirus pandemic.
Davis said Tuesday that he was “humbled, shamed and embarrassed” and apologized to each of the victims by name.
“I am sorry for what I have done to you because of what I was going through,” he said.
He said he was depressed and under the influence of oxycodone at the time; he had lost his car and job and was sleeping on a family member’s couch.
“I pray for forgiveness from God and all the victims,” he said. “I just pray for a second chance to be a dad, even if I’m in jail for the rest of my life.”
Davis will become eligible for parole after 30 years in prison and must register as a sex offender. If he is released, he will be on probation for five years and remain under lifetime supervision. Ensor recommended he be considered for a mental health program at Patuxent Institution.
Assistant State’s Attorneys John Magee and Stacy Amparo asked Ensor for a life sentence. Under Maryland law, Davis would have become eligible for parole sooner had he received a life sentence, but parole is rarely granted to those serving life sentences.
Jason Silverstein, Davis’ attorney, requested life suspending all but 30 years.
The three young women gave Ensor victim impact statements to read privately and were present in court Tuesday with their families.
The Baltimore Sun does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted without their consent.
Magee said the three students, in their first year at Towson University at the time, have struggled to cope in the aftermath of the rapes, particularly with trusting men. Magee said a fourth woman also accused Davis of raping her at gunpoint in early 2023 in a case that is still pending in Baltimore City.
“Their sense of safety is essentially forever shattered,” Magee said of the victims. “We have nothing to conclude other than he is a predator and he likely will do this again.”
Silverstein rejected that assessment as too simplistic.
“I have to believe that there are root causes,” he told Ensor. “The answer can’t just be ‘he’s a bad person, that’s it.'”
Silverstein said Davis’ life had been marked by “immense tragedy.” He was born when his mother was 17 and molested by family members as a young child. Then, when Davis was about 18, his father was killed, Silverstein said.
Demonteay Davis said Tuesday that his older brother’s support was invaluable in helping him graduate from college.
Kayla Adams, the mother of Davis’ two daughters, said Davis has been a proud and dependable father since his first daughter was born.
Davis’ mother, Lecarol Mayo, said he had traveled to attend his oldest daughter’s dance troupe performances and the pair had a dance routine together.
Ensor said she was particularly struck by how Davis’ former high school teacher Jay Gillen described him in a letter to the court as charismatic, loyal, honest, insightful about people and a responsible father. Gillen also spoke at the sentencing Tuesday.
“I don’t understand what happened or how he sunk so low when he is capable of soaring so high,” Gillen told the court.
