An 18-year-old St. Paul man was sentenced Tuesday to 25½ years in prison for raping a woman in front of her male companion while burglarizing her home for the third time.
Curtez D. Graham pleaded guilty in September in Ramsey County District Court to first-degree criminal sexual conduct, first-degree burglary and kidnapping. District Judge George Stephenson sentenced him to 25½ years on the rape conviction and 6½ years for each of the other two convictions. The three sentences will run concurrently.
"We seldom see crimes as completely inhumane as this," said Assistant Ramsey County Attorney C. Ryan Tennison. "The defendant raped the victim in her home in front of her loved one. This after terrorizing the victim in her home on two prior occasions."
Graham cut off an electronic monitoring bracelet and broke into the St. Paul woman's home in June. He targeted the victim, charges said, because he had burglarized her twice in 2011 and was angry that she reported those incidents, which sent him away for 14 months to Boys Totem Town, a juvenile facility, and a correctional facility in Red Wing.
Graham was furloughed from the Red Wing facility just before the 2013 break-in and was being monitored with the ankle bracelet.
According to charges: The victim and her male companion woke up to Graham standing naked in the bedroom armed with a pair of scissors. He ordered the man to put underwear in his mouth and tie himself up with a belt. Graham raped the woman, who is in her 60s. She told police she complied because she feared being stabbed.
Graham took money and a cellphone from the victims and made them count to 100 as he fled.
"Don't call the police," he threatened. "I can come and get you anytime."
