A 24-year-old man with a history of violent assault drove up to a woman walking on a Minneapolis street and feigned being lost late at night, then pulled her into his car and raped her until police intervened, according to charges.
Ernest F. Wilkes, of Minneapolis, was charged in Hennepin County District Court with first-degree criminal sexual conduct in connection with the attack last week and remains jailed Monday in lieu of $500,000 bail.
Wilkes has a lengthy criminal history that includes offenses committed while he was a juvenile. As an adult, he was convicted in 2010 of aggravated robbery in Hennepin County and last year for failing to register as a predatory offender in Wadena County. He's also been convicted of misdemeanor assault counts in two other cases.
Defense attorney Nancy Laskaris declined to comment Monday about the charges, saying she has yet to review the allegations or speak with Wilkes.
Officers were dispatched shortly before 1 a.m. last Tuesday about a woman being assaulted in a car parked on a street in the Police Department's Third Precinct, which covers the southeastern quarter of the city. They arrived and saw the woman being raped while she was trying to fend off her attacker, the criminal complaint read.
"He raped me! He raped me!" the complaint quoted the crying and visibly shaken woman, with fresh face and neck injuries, as telling the officers.
The woman told police she just left her home and noticed a car drive by her four or five times before it stopped. The driver got out and said to her, "I'm new to the area. Can you tell me where 29th and Franklin is?" the complaint continued.
The woman gave directions and began walking away. That's when the driver grabbed and choked her, then dragged her into his car, according to the complaint.
Along with raping her, Wilkes punched the woman in the face and choked her into unconsciousness, the charging document noted. She said she came to while she being raped.
"[The] victim thought she was going to die and never see her children again," the complaint read.
Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482
