A woman was approached at the Mall of America light-rail station and raped in the bathroom by a man who was convicted in 2004 of sexual assault and murder in Louisiana, according to prosecutors.
Kendell R. Jones, 39, was charged Friday in Hennepin County District Court with third-degree criminal sexual conduct in connection with the assault on Jan. 21.
Jones, whose address on the criminal complaint is listed as the Salvation Army's Harbor Light shelter in downtown Minneapolis, remains jailed in lieu of $250,000 bail. His attorney was not immediately available to respond to the allegations.
Two days before the alleged assault, Jones was released from the same jail without bail after being charged with misdemeanors accusing him of pushing his girlfriend to the ground at the 46th Street bus station at Interstate 35W in Minneapolis and punching her several times.
In 2004, Jones was convicted in Louisiana of murder and rape. The incident involved Jones and an accomplice being hired to kill a man, but "when the intended target was not home, they killed his wife and raped her daughter," last week's criminal complaint against him read.
Jones, in an apparent reference to the Louisiana case, told police upon his arrest in the light-rail assault that he recently finished spending 15 years in prison for a sex offense.
According to the sexual assault case filed against Jones:
A "visibly upset and crying woman" told Metro Transit police that she was at the Mall of America rail station, where Jones offered to give her drugs in the bathroom.
