An alleged serial rapist was arraigned Thursday in Queens, after police linked the suspect's DNA evidence to at least two sexual assaults, including one on an 11-year-old girl.

Rosales pleaded not guilty in Queens Criminal Court to two counts of first-degree rape, and charges of sexual assault, robbery and burglary. He now faces up to 50 years in prison.

Officials say they obtained the DNA after Mauricio Rosales, 32, of Woodhaven was arrested and convicted of petty larceny in November, in connection to stealing money from the restaurant where he worked.

"The case underscores the importance of DNA testing. It's to today's technology what fingerprints was," said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.

According to the Queens district attorney's office, back in 2000 Rosales allegedly sneaked into a house near 86th Avenue and 98th Street in Richmond Hill and raped an 11-year-old girl at knifepoint in her own bedroom.

The other incident in 2003 involved the alleged rape and the robbery at knifepoint of a 19-year-old woman in her Queensboro Hill driveway.

In 2004, Brown indicted Rosales as "John Doe," using the two incidents' matching DNA in the hopes that the suspect would one day be arrested and to avoid the statute of limitations from running out.

Sources say Rosales's DNA was also a match with other cases, but that the statute of limitation ran out on those cases.

Brown said that about 46 percent of convicted criminals are required to give DNA samples, and that he is urging the state Legislature to require anyone convicted on a misdemeanor to submit a DNA sample.

"What we end up doing as a practical matter is we take it at the time of conviction, not at the time of arrest, and when it's taken it goes to the data bank," said Brown. "It takes a little bit of time before we end up getting, but we were just recently advised of this November conviction."

Rosales was remanded without bail and is due back in court on March 4th.