Boyfriend accused of waterboarding and raping his new girlfriend while holding her prisoner in her dorm for three days agrees to plea deal
A man who was accused of raping, beating and waterboarding his girlfriend at a Minnesota college has reached a plea deal that will see him jailed for up to seven-and-a-half years.
Keanu Avery Labatte, 20, of Granite Falls, Minnesota, has pleaded guilty to an amended charge of second-degree criminal sexual conduct.
Labatte admitted to choking and sexually assaulting the woman, who was his new girlfriend, in her dorm room at St. Catherine University last September.
In return, prosecutors agreed to dismiss four other charges.
Labatte's attorney, Thomas Beito, said Labatte admitted to choking her during the assault.
Keanu Labatte, 20, accused of holding his girlfriend captive in her dorm room at St. Catherine University for three days while raping, beating and waterboarding her, has agreed to a plea deal that will see him sentenced for up to 7½ years
'He did not admit to the other kind of salacious details that were involved here, such as waterboarding, or holding her hostage or kidnapping,' Beito said to The Pioneer Press. 'We deny that any of that happened.'
Labatte remains free on an $80,000 bond ahead of his sentencing in November.
Beito said he will ask Judge Kellie Charles for probation, 'due to his age, due to the fact that he doesn't have any prior significant criminal history.'
Dennis Gerhardstein, spokesperson for the Ramsey County Attorney's Office, said prosecutors will ask the judge to give Labatte the full seven-and-a-half year term.
According to the complaint, Labatte went to the campus on a Thursday to visit his girlfriend of two months.
After finding texts, pictures and social media content that 'infuriated' him, he took her phone and began his campaign of brutality, the complaint said.
It is unclear what he saw on her phone that ignited the rage, but the criminal complaint says he used both hands around her neck to strangle her and threatened to kill her while calling her a s**t.
St. Catherine University's baccalaureate College for Women is one of the largest private women’s universities in the nation
She says she felt lightheaded and saw stars while being strangled.
Labatte threatened to kill her family and reminded her that he had previously held a knife to the throat of a prior girlfriend.
She was strangled, threatened with a knife, forced to lie in a bathtub while Labatte covered her face with a washcloth and poured water on her, and sexually assaulted her, the complaint alleged.
The St. Catherine's student said she was so terrified to the point that she would lay next to her captor and not move out of fear of what he would do next.
She says the worst of the torture was on the Saturday when the waterboarding took place.
Labatte filled a bucket, forced her to lay in the bathtub where he put a washcloth on her face and poured water over her.
That same day, when threatening her with the knife, he held her arm and said he was looking for the right vein to cut deep enough so she could not be saved.
It wasn't until three days later, on Sunday morning, she persuaded him to let her leave to get food from the cafeteria.
He gave the victim her phone and told her she had to send pictures of where she was so that he could keep track of her.
Once out of the dorm, she went to university's campus security office and told them she had been physically and sexually abused by her boyfriend.
Campus security then called the police. Officers noticed marks on her neck, the complaint said.
While speaking with police, Labatte called the victim repeatedly and she explained to authorities that he was paranoid she was away from the dorm and ready to leave campus.
Labatte was found in the dorm room and arrested. After being read his rights, Labatte said 'I plead the fifth.'
During a search of the room, police found an orange/black/silver folding knife in the front pocket of a green backpack and a wet red washcloth.
The mattress was found on the floor, which the victim says Labatte moved to prevent others from hearing the bed squeak during the sexual assaults.
