A Minnesota man who authorities say held his girlfriend captive while raping and beating her for days pleaded guilty on Friday — days before a jury trial was scheduled to begin.
Keanu Avery Labatte, 20, of Granite Falls, was arrested last September after he sexually assaulted his girlfriend of two months in her dorm room at St. Catherine University in St. Paul.
Labatte is also accused of strangling and waterboarding the victim, and threatening her with a knife, “looking for the right vein [on her arm] to cut deep enough so no one could save her,” according to a criminal complaint obtained by local station KSTP.
He was charged with three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and one count each of domestic assault by strangulation and threats of violence. If convicted on all counts, Labatte could’ve been faced up to 98 years behind bars.
On Friday, Labatte pleaded guilty to an amended charge of second-degree criminal sexual conduct, which carries a maximum sentence of seven and a half years in prison.
While Labatte admitted to “choking” the victim during the assault, “he did not admit to the other kind of salacious details that were involved here, such as waterboarding, or holding her hostage or kidnapping,” his attorney, Thomas Beito, said Friday. “We deny that any of that happened.”
Beito will ask the judge to give his client a probationary sentence due to his age and “the fact that he doesn’t have any prior significant criminal history.”
Dennis Gerhardstein, a spokesperson for the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office, said prosecutors will ask the judge to sentence Labatte to the full seven-and-a-half-year term, the Twin Cities Pioneer Press reported.
With News Wire Services