A 35-year-old hairdresser has received six months in the workhouse for sexually assaulting a onetime co-worker.
Leslie D. Richards, of Mound, was sentenced Monday in Hennepin County District Court after a jury convicted him of third-degree criminal sexual conduct in connection with an assault in July 2019.
A similar case filed against Richards alleging an assault in May 2018 was dismissed by prosecutors because of "insufficient evidence to proceed," said Assistant County Attorney Max Page. "Namely, we were unable to secure the presence of a critical witness."
In both cases, Richards told police that the encounters were consensual.
Richards had been renting space at Salon Concepts in Edina starting in late August 2019 until April 2020, when he was arrested, said an attorney for the nationwide company based in Ohio. Richards' professional license with the state Board of Cosmetology expired in May 2020.
According to the charges:
The allegations in the case that was dismissed came from a woman who said Richards lured her to his St. Louis Park apartment in May 2018, when both worked at Spalon Montage in Edina. She said Richards pushed her into a bedroom and raped her.
That case led investigators to another allegation against Richards by a colleague at the time, this one involving an encounter in Sola Salon in Eden Prairie on July 6, 2019.
