Local doctor who tied up, repeatedly raped a woman in 1989 sentenced to 15 years in prison for making false statements to FBI

Date: Jan. 28, 2026

Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov

Dayton, OH – A Sycamore Township man who admitted to tying up and repeatedly raping a woman in 1989 was sentenced in U.S. District Court here today to the statutory maximum 180 months in prison for making false statements about the rapes to federal agents.

Frederick Louis Tanzer pleaded guilty in September 2025 to three counts of the false statements crime.

“Before admitting that he was the man who committed these horrific rapes in 1989, Tanzer lied to the FBI. His DNA confirmed his guilt, and evidence points to Tanzer being a serial rapist,” said U.S. Attorney Dominick S. Gerace II. “Tanzer poses a grave risk to the public and deserves to be in prison not only for his lies but also for the despicable attack he was trying to cover up.”

“The strong investigative work by the Cincinnati Police Department and the FBI led to Frederick Tanzer’s identification and his admission of his heinous crimes,” stated FBI Cincinnati Special Agent in Charge Jason Cromartie. “I commend the investigators who never gave up in their pursuit of justice for the victim.”

According to court documents, on Aug. 1, 1989, Tanzer broke into the home of Dana Beatty (then Dana Sandbo) in Cincinnati and repeatedly raped her over the course of five and a half hours. Tanzer, masked and dressed from head to toe in black Lycra, held a knife to the victim’s throat, dragged her into her bedroom, blindfolded her with surgical tape, bound her hands and feet to her bed frame, and then repeatedly, and with extreme violence, raped her vaginally, anally and orally.

The case remained unsolved for nearly 35 years. In 2024, the FBI, working with the Cincinnati Police Department, confirmed that DNA taken from Tanzer’s coffee cup matched the semen left by the man who attacked Dana Beatty in 1989.

When approached about the rapes, the defendant made several distinct and materially false statements to a federal agent and a Cincinnati Police Department detective, including denying having seen or interacted with the victim on the date of the attack.

The statute of limitations for the crimes committed during the 1989 attack expired in approximately 1995.

Tanzer was arrested in December 2024 and has remained in custody since.

Dominick S. Gerace II, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio; Jason Cromartie, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Cincinnati Division; and Cincinnati Interim Police Chief Adam Hennie announced the sentence imposed today by U.S. District Judge Michael J. Newman. The IRS-Criminal Investigation Cincinnati Field Office assisted in the investigation. Assistant United States Attorneys Kelly K. Rossi and Julie D. Garcia are representing the United States in this case.

While the United States Attorney’s Office typically does not identify crime victims, Dana Beatty is identified here by name at her request.

IRS Criminal Investigation, the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Social Security Administration Office of Inspector General, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and the Missouri Department of Revenue investigated the case. The investigation also involved numerous foreign law enforcement agencies, including the German Federal Criminal Police, or Bundeskriminalamt, the Frankfurt am Main Public Prosecutor's Office - Central Office for Combating Internet Crime (ZIT) as well as law enforcement agencies from Switzerland, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kyle Bateman is prosecuting the case.

IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) is the law enforcement arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a 90% federal conviction rate. The agency has 19 field offices located across the U.S. and 14 attaché posts abroad.