A paedophile who raped a seven-year-old girl at knifepoint inside a public toilet at her dance studio has died in jail.
Anthony Sampieri, 56, died of liver cancer in an isolation unit at Long Bay Prison Hospital in Sydney, Australia.
He had lodged an appeal against his life sentence in February after doctors gave him a 60% chance of surviving the next five years.
Sampieri became the first paedophile in the country to be jailed for life for sexually assaulting a child following the horrific 40 minute attack in November 2018.
The girl was led at knifepoint with a cord around her neck to the toilet, where Sampieri raped her and filmed the crime.
He then bound the girl’s hands with a cord from his shorts and stuffed toilet paper in her mouth so she could not call out for help.
As he left the toilet dance school mechanic Nicola Gilio, who was helping the child’s mother look for the girl, confronted Sampieri.
Mr Gilo tackled the monster to the ground and with the help of a dentist, restrained him until police arrived at the scene.
The rapist, who had his trousers down and was covered in blood, told police he had been taking ice.
He said: “I was shooting up and he’s come in, beat me up and stolen my meth.”
In June 2019 Sampieri pleaded guilty to 10 charges related to the dance hall attack, including three counts of sexual intercourse with a child under 10.
He also admitted to charges related to sexually explicit and harassing phone calls he made to women in the months before.
Sampieri also claimed had repeatedly injected ice in nearby public toilets before the attack.
He said he was in such a state of sexual excitement by the time he was in the dance studio facilities, he would have attacked anyone who had walked in.
In the months before the rape, Sampieri made 94 sexually explicit calls to various women including a 71-year-old community choir treasurer.
Sampieri was also on parole at the time, having been released from jail for raping a 60-year-old woman at her home Wollongong in 2012.