Outside a church in St. Paul on Saturday morning, a guy was detained and accused of sexually abusing a lady.
According to a criminal complaint submitted this week, a 37-year-old lady said a guy she didn’t know grabbed her around the neck at a light-rail transport kiosk close to the Capitol and forced her to walk to a church stairway, where he sexually attacked her.
Just before 7 a.m., St. Paul police officers responded to a complaint of a sexual assault that had happened in the 400 block of Park Street approximately 10 minutes earlier. According to the complaint, officers spoke with a lady who said a guy threatened to “crack her neck” if she refused to comply with his requests for sex.
She described the guy to the police, stating that he had a vertical scar on his stomach that was between 6 and 7 inches in length. She had a sexual assault examination at a hospital.
Soon after, police discovered a guy who matched the description at a nearby gas station. An officer went to the hospital to talk with her after taking a picture of the guy. Her “eyes became large” at seeing the image, and she said, “Oh my goodness. That is him. That is him. That is definitely him, I’m sure,” the complaint said. Louis Rogers, 64, of St. Paul, was the suspect, according to subsequent police reports.
She told a police investigator that while she and a companion were making their way to her friend’s home on Rice Street, an unidentified guy stopped them and inquired about her knowledge of how to take the train to reach downtown. She stated she agreed to accompany him to a ticketing machine for the bus so he could obtain a ticket. To wait for her, her companion went to a fast food joint.
She informed police that while at the kiosk, he grabbed her by the neck and continuously threatened to hurt her. She displayed to the detective brand-new red marks on her neck.
She said that he coerced her into making the short trip to a stairway on the church’s east side. The lawsuit claims that when the investigator showed her a picture of the stairway and asked whether that was where she had been attacked, she sobbed uncontrollably and said that it was the location of the incident.
Rogers said he had never seen the lady before during a formal interview with the police in which he denied knowing her. The lawsuit claims that he afterwards changed his mind and claimed to have seen her “a couple times” on the train. He denied knowing her and hitting her on Saturday. He said he was unaware of how she became aware of the scar on his tummy.
Rogers received testing for a possible sexual assault. According to officials, swabs of both his and the woman’s DNA have been forwarded to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension for processing.
Rogers was charged with first-degree criminal sexual conduct on Monday by the Ramsey County Attorney’s office. He made his first court appearance on the case on Tuesday and was kept behind bars in lieu of a $80,000 bond.
According to RAINN, the majority of sexual assaults are carried out by a victim’s friend; roughly 20% are done by a stranger (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network).
According to court records in Minnesota, Rogers was found guilty of five crimes, including drug possession in 1996 and 2007 and third-degree burglary in 2015. He was also found guilty of second-degree aggravated robbery in 2000 and second-degree sale of a controlled substance in 2005. He has had 28 minor theft convictions.
On Thursday, a representative for Rogers refused to comment on the matter.
