A 19-year-old Minnesota man is accused of waterboarding and brutally physically and sexually assaulting a woman for three days in her dorm room last weekend.
St. Paul police arrested Keanu Avery Labatte, 19, at St. Catherine University, a women’s college, shortly after noon Sunday, alleging he forcibly held the woman he had been dating in her dorm room for three days while repeatedly assaulting her and threatening to kill her and her family, according to Ramsey County sheriff’s records and the criminal complaint, which NBC News obtained.
The woman told police that she and Labatte had been dating for two months and that he arrived on the campus from his home in Granite Falls — about 135 miles west of the university — on Thursday night for a weekend visit. She said Labatte “discovered text messages, pictures and social media information which infuriated him” on her phone, became enraged and took her phone before he started the string of alleged assaults.
Labatte allegedly raped the woman, threatened to kill her and strangled her, leading her to believe she was going to die, according to the complaint.
He also allegedly threatened to kill her family “and reminded her that she knew what he had done to a prior girlfriend, which was to hold a knife to her throat,” it says.
At the time of the alleged assault, Labatte was on probation for violating a harassment/restraining order, according to the criminal complaint, which does not provide more information.
The victim told police that Saturday brought the “worst of it,” alleging that Labatte waterboarded her by forcing her to lie down in the bathtub, covering her mouth with a wet washcloth and pouring water on her face; later that day, he allegedly took a knife and threatened to cut her veins so she would die.
The victim managed to escape from her dorm room Sunday morning, when she persuaded Labatte to allow her to go to the cafeteria, leading him to allow her to take…
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