Two men charged in sexual assault of vulnerable adult at Mystic Lake
Prior Lake, MN Sept 14 2019
Two men face felony charges after police say they sexually assaulted a woman with mental and physical impairments at the Mystic Lake Casino Hotel in March.
Francis Ndegwa Kamau, 39, of Spring Lake Park was arrested in Minneapolis and booked in the Scott County Jail on Aug. 8 in connection with third-degree felony criminal sexual conduct. Kamau’s arrest came three months after the county attorney filed charges against Kamau and Kenneth Wagacha Kibe, 37, of Burnsville.
According to Prior Lake Police and court records, the warrant for Kibe has not yet been served, and he has not been arrested.
Both men are charged with third-degree criminal sexual conduct for sexual penetration of a person who “is mentally impaired, mentally incapacitated, or physically helpless.” Each charge carries with it a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, a fine of $30,000 or both.
The county’s criminal complaint states officers found multiple videos of the alleged assault and a text conversation about the victim on the men’s phones.
According to the warrants, police received the report of sexual assault at 10:22 p.m. on March 30. Staff at the casino told officers that a woman had approached casino security to report that she had been assaulted.
The woman has been diagnosed with “mild intellectual disabilities, unspecified congenital anomaly of musculoskeletal system (right hand), seizure disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and depression,” and lives at a group home for people with cognitive and physical disabilities, according to the warrants.
The warrants allege that on the afternoon of March 30, Kamau and Kibe approached the woman while she waited at the casino buffet. The three chatted for a while before casino surveillance video shows them entering a hotel room for more than an hour.
The woman told police that when the group entered the hotel room, both men tried to have sex with her several times even though she told them to stop. During an sexual assault exam at St. Francis Medical Center the woman told a nurse that Kamau had told her he wanted to “give [you] a baby.”
Both Kamau and Kibe were at the casino when police arrived on the scene. During Kibe’s interview with officers, he said he had recorded a portion of the assault without Kamau’s knowledge.
Kamau initially denied being involved in the assault. When officers told him that Kibe had a video of him on top of the woman, he reversed course and said that she was “enticing them” and that they were not “too serious having sex,” police said.
Both men told police that they noticed the woman had a limp but did not realize that she had any cognitive disabilities.
Officers found and photographed “blood or other bodily fluid” and a condom wrapper on the bed sheets of the room.
In documents filed Aug. 9, Kamau said he had hired an attorney to represent him, though no attorney was listed on his case file at press time. His first court appearance is set for Oct. 21.
