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 accused of raping, beating and waterboarding his girlfriend at a Minnesota college has reached a plea agreement that could see him serve up to seven and a half years in prison.

Keanu Avery Labatte, 20, of Granite Falls, Minnesota, has pleaded guilty to an amended charge of criminal sexual conduct in the second degree.

Labatte admitted to strangling and sexually assaulting the woman, who was his new girlfriend, in her dorm room at St. Catherine University last September.

In exchange, prosecutors agreed to drop four other charges.

According to Labatte’s attorney, Thomas Beito, Labatte admitted to strangling her during the attack.

“He has not admitted to the other salacious details that were involved, such as waterboarding, or her hostage-taking or kidnapping,” Beito told The Pioneer Press. “We deny that any of this happened.”

Labatte remains free after posting $80,000 bail ahead of his November sentencing.

Beito said he will ask Judge Kellie Charles for probation, “due to his age and the fact that he has no significant criminal history.”

Dennis Gerhardstein, spokesman for the Ramsey County District Attorney’s Office, said prosecutors will ask the judge to give Labatte the full seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence.

According to the complaint, Labatte went to campus on Thursday to visit his girlfriend of two months.

After finding texts, photos and content on social media that made him “enraged,” he took her phone and began his campaign of cruelty, the complaint said.

It’s unclear what he saw on her phone and what fueled the anger, but the complaint alleges he punched her in the neck with both hands and threatened to kill her, calling her “as**t.”

St. Catherine University’s undergraduate college for women is one of the largest private women’s universities in the country

She says she felt dizzy and saw stars as she was strangled.

Labatte threatened to kill her family, reminding her that he had previously held a knife to the throat of a previous girlfriend.

She was strangled, threatened with a knife and forced to lie in a bathtub while Labatte covered her face with a washcloth and poured water on her, before being sexually assaulted, the complaint alleges.

The St. Catherine student said she was so scared that she lay next to her captor and did not move. She was afraid of what he would do.

She says the worst torture occurred on the Saturday when the waterboarding took place.

Labatte filled a bucket, forced her into the bath, placed a washcloth on her face and poured water over her.

That same day, when he threatened her with the knife, he held her arm and said he was looking for the right vein that he could cut deep enough so that she could not be saved.

It wasn’t until three days later, on Sunday morning, that she convinced him to let her go and get food from the cafeteria.

He gave the victim her phone and told her to send pictures of where she was so he could keep an eye on her.

Once she was out of the dorm, she went to university security and reported that she had been physically and sexually assaulted by her boyfriend.

Campus security then called police, and officers saw marks on her neck, the complaint said.

During his conversation with police, Labatte repeatedly called the victim, who explained to authorities that he was paranoid that she was not in the dormitory and was about to leave campus.

Labatte was found in the dormitory and arrested. After being read his rights, Labatte said, “I invoke 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 and according to the victim, Labatte moved the mattress so others would not hear the bed squeaking during the sexual assaults.