Minnesota man admits to raping girlfriend over several days in college dorm

A Minnesota man who authorities say held his girlfriend captive, raped her and beat her for days pleaded guilty Friday, just days before a jury trial was scheduled to begin.

Keanu Avery Labatte, 20, of Granite Falls, was arrested last September after sexually assaulting 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 “in order to search for the right vein (on her arm) to cut deep enough so that no one could save her,” according to a criminal complaint obtained by local station KSTP.

He was charged with three counts of first-degree sexual abuse and one count each of domestic violence by strangulation and threat of violence. If convicted on all counts, Labatte could have faced up to 98 years behind bars.

On Friday, Labatte pleaded guilty to an amended charge of second-degree sexual abuse, which carries a maximum sentence of seven and a half years in prison.

Although Labatte admitted to “choking” the victim during the attack, “he did not admit to the other offensive details that are involved here, such as waterboarding, hostage-taking or kidnapping,” his lawyer Thomas Beito said on Friday. “We deny that any of this happened.”

Beito will ask the judge to give his client a suspended sentence due to his age and “the fact that he has no significant criminal history.”

Dennis Gerhardstein, a spokesman for the Ramsey County District Attorney’s Office, said prosecutors would ask the judge to sentence Labatte to the full seven-and-a-half-year prison term, the Twin Cities Pioneer Press reported.

With News Wire Services