The teenager dubbed the "Facebook rapist", Sedzani Ndou, thought he would never be caught - but his shenanigans led to his arrest and 30 years in prison.
He appeared visibly shocked when Pretoria High Court Judge Eben Jordaan on Monday sentenced him to a total of 70 years behind bars.
The judge however, told the 19-year-old that spending 70 years in jail was steep.
“Although you did horrible things to your victims, I order that you effectively serve 30 of the 70 years,” the judge said.
He sentenced Ndou to 15 years' imprisonment each for the rapes and robberies committed to four of his victims, and 10 years for the rape and robbery of his fifth victim.
Some of his victims, who were in court yesterday, glared at their rapist as he was sentenced, and one of the women afterwards hugged the prosecutor and told her “she will be okay now”.
They declined to speak to The Star’s sister paper, the Pretoria News, but one of their mothers said she would have been happy if the rapist had received a 100-year jail sentence.
She was unhappy that Ndou’s family, who supported him in court, never spoke to her and her daughter or apologised on his behalf.
Ndou was barely 18 when he pretended to be a handsome sport star on Facebook to attract girls. He used the picture of a well-known football star and pretended to be him.
The five young victims befriended the youth on Facebook and all said in their statements that they were thrilled that he was interested in them.
Some of them corresponded via Facebook and later WhatsApp for months before they eventually met at a Spar supermarket in Mamelodi.
Ndou pretended to be Junior - the soccer star on Facebook - but when he met them at the Spar, he pretended to be Mpho, Junior's cousin.
He always told his victims that Junior was running late and had asked him to accompany them to his home.
En route to the house, Ndou turned on his unsuspecting victims, raped and robbed them. Some were raped more than once.
His victims said they were shocked that the kind and friendly man had turned so violent.
The State called for at least three life sentences, as some of his victims were teenagers, the youngest being just 15 years old.
But Judge Jordaan said the fact that Ndou was so young counted in his favour and he should be given another chance in life. He said it was clear that Ndou could be categorised as a serial rapist, as he had raped five victims.
Ndou said that because he was young, he did not understand the consequences of his actions and thought he would never be caught.
He said he used the same strategy to meet all his victims but would have liked to become involved in a relationship with one of them.
The victims said they too were keen on having a relationship with the man they had befriended on social media. One of the victims even called him her boyfriend before his true colours emerged.
The 15-year-old, who lived far away, said in her statement she had travelled for nearly an entire day to Mamelodi to meet him. She used money her granny had given her to buy school clothes.
The last victim and her friend set a trap for Ndou. After the victim was raped, her friend befriended him on Facebook. The two agreed to meet about two months later. The friend and the victim then told the police about the meeting and he was arrested at the meeting spot.