A 20-year-old Minnesota man who was initially accused of holding his girlfriend of two months imprisoned for three days, raping and waterboarding her in a university dorm room, has pleaded guilty to one sex crime ahead of trial, removing much more serious accusations from the table.
Keanu Avery Labatte of Granite Falls pleaded guilty to second-degree criminal sexual conduct on Friday in Ramsey County, which his defense described as an admission to non-consensual sexual contact involving the use of force by choking the victim in September 2023 inside a St. Catherine’s University dorm room.
During an interview, the defendant’s attorney, Thomas Beito, indicated that the defense will urge the judge to sentence Labatte to probation, while prosecutors will seek the maximum 90 months (7.5 years) in jail authorized under the deal.
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“It’s easy to make allegations; it’s more difficult to prove them,” Beito said, noting that in exchange for the guilty plea, the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office agreed to drop charges of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, threats of violence, and domestic abuse by strangulation. The top charge could have resulted in three decades in prison if convicted at trial.
According to the attorney, if a judge approves the arrangement, Labatte will be required to register as a sex offender for at least 10 years and could face up to a year in jail, even if probation is the punishment. Labatte will also be subjected to a psychosexual evaluation before being sentenced, which will help the judge make his judgment.
The defense lawyer also argued that what was originally reported about the case did not occur and that prosecutors were not confident enough in the evidence to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt at trial.
According to Dennis Gerhardstein, a spokesman for the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office, the prosecution will seek the maximum sentence of 90 months in prison in response to the defendant’s admission of forced sexual intercourse.
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“When he pled guilty, as part of the agreement, the facts that he admitted to are non-consensual sexual penetration using force and causing injury,” according to Gerhardstein. “He said he grabbed her by the neck and forced her to have intercourse and caused her pain.”
When the criminal case originally surfaced, a criminal complaint claimed that Labatte raped the woman for three days and waterboarded her in a bathtub in her hostel after becoming angered with texts and photographs on her phone.
The girl told police that she was “terrified” and “would just lay next to Labatte and not move for fear of what he would do to her.” She recalls the suspect sliding a mattress inside the dorm room from the bed frame to the floor to keep the bed from squeaking. The victim also said that Labatte “punched her in the stomach four times, twice in the throat, and once in the face.”
According to the complaint, Labatte ultimately permitted the victim to leave the dorm room to fetch dinner and returned her phone, at which point she called the police.
When authorities arrived at the hostel, Labatte allegedly remained in the room and replied, “I plead the Fifth.”