A 49-year-old Mexican man who was charged with a violent Santa Fe rape and extradited from Mexico earlier this year served time in prison for a similar crime in California in the 1980s and is a suspect in another rape case from that state, police said.

"He's basically a serial rapist," Santa Fe police Detective Tony Trujillo said earlier this week.

In March 2006, Manuel Noriega — also known as Manuel de Jesus Noriega-Ruvalcaba — allegedly convinced a woman he worked with at the Eldorado Hotel and Spa that he was a professional artist who painted nude women, Santa Fe police have said. Noriega told the woman he'd pay her, then went to her apartment on Sawmill Road and raped her for four to five hours, police have said. He also allegedly assaulted her with a knife.

Two days after the alleged rape, Noriega fled to Mexico, Trujillo said. However, Trujillo was able to obtain an address where Noriega might be in Mexico from relatives living in Santa Fe, and Mexican police arrested him there in July 2007. In an unusual arrangement — which is governed by a treaty between Mexico and the U.S. and required a ton of paperwork — Mexico extradited Noriega to Santa Fe in May, Trujillo said.

Once he was here, detectives obtained a DNA sample from him and loaded the results into a national DNA database, he said. They immediately got a "hit," meaning his DNA had already been entered, Trujillo said.

The results indicated Noriega had been convicted of sexual battery under the name Ramiro Salazar Garza in the Pasadena, Calif., area in 1987, Trujillo said. Almost as soon as he was released from prison in 1990, he fled, Trujillo said. California authorities plan to extradite him as soon as he's finished serving whatever punishment he receives here — provided he's convicted of the Santa Fe charges, Trujillo said.

California authorities also suspect Noriega in another rape, though Trujillo said he didn't have specifics about that case.

Noriega has been charged with five counts of criminal sexual penetration and one count each of kidnapping, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and aggravated battery in the Santa Fe case.

"This is a case that certainly could have gone cold because he left the country," said Capt. Gary Johnson, Trujillo's supervisor. "But because of the experience and tenacity of this detective, it could lead to another arrest in a new case."

Contact Jason Auslander at 986-3076 or :jauslander@sfnewmexican.com.