A 22-year-old man in prison for crashing his car last spring in Burnsville and killing one of two teenage girls with him has been charged with sexually assaulting two 13-year-old girls months before the wreck.

Alejandro J. Saavedra, 22, of Farmington, was charged in Dakota County District Court last week with two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct in connection with assaults that occurred in fall 2021.

Saavedra is currently in St. Cloud prison for the fatal crash while fleeing police after a hotel party in April 2022. He has about 21⁄3 years left to serve in prison and then the balance of his five-year sentence on supervised release.

According to the sexual assault charges:

A woman told police that her 13-year-old daughter was a friend of the girl killed in the crash and that Saavedra provides drugs to teenage girls in exchange for sex. The girl said Saavedra supplied her and her friends with drugs.

On Halloween 2021 and about a month later, Saavedra gave the girl drugs at his home and sexually assaulted her.

On April 14, 2022, five days after the crash, another 13-year-old girl told police that Saavedra also provided drugs to her and sexually assaulted her at his home in September or October 2021.

During police questioning in July 2022, Saavedra said he knew both girls were juveniles and shared drugs with them. He said he kissed one of them, "messed around" with the other but denied the sexual assault allegations.

Saavedra was sentenced in October after pleading guilty to criminal vehicular homicide and criminal vehicular operation in connection with the wreck near Nicollet Boulevard and Grand Avenue in Burnsville.

Sydney N. Kohner, a 16-year-old sophomore at Lakeville North High School, died at the scene. A second passenger, a 15-year-old girl from Rosemount, survived her injuries.

Police went to the Best Western Premier Nicollet Inn in the 14200 block of S. Nicollet Avenue in response to noise complaints connected to rooms registered to Saavedra. An officer arrived and saw three people run to a car.

Saavedra sped out of the lot and crashed about a mile to the north of the hotel as the officer pursued. Emergency responders found the girls unconscious in the back seat.

Saavedra told police he drank and consumed cocaine at the hotel before "he saw the police cars in the hotel parking lot and attempted to avoid the police by leaving the hotel," the charges read.