Man accused of holding girlfriend captive in Minnesota college dorm room reaches plea deal

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A man who was accused of holding his girlfriend captive in her dorm room at a Minnesota college for three days while raping, beating and waterboarding her has reached a plea deal that calls for a sentence of up to 7 1/2 years.

Keanu Avery Labatte, 20, of Granite Falls, pleaded guilty Friday to an amended charge of second-degree criminal sexual conduct. He admitted to choking and sexually assaulting the woman in her room at St. Catherine University in September. In return, prosecutors agreed to dismiss four other charges, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported.

His attorney, Thomas Beito, said Labatte admitted to choking her 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,” Beito said. “We deny that any of that happened.”

Labatte remains free on an $80,000 bond ahead of sentencing Nov. 4. 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 7 1/2-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, the complaint said. 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, the complaint alleged.

That Sunday morning, she persuaded him to let her leave to get food from the cafeteria. But she went to the university’s security office and told them she was being abused. They notified police, and officers noted marks on her neck, the complaint said.