An accused serial rapist who terrorized St. Paul’s East Side last year has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting three women. A jury last month convicted him of raping a fourth.
Larry Griffin, 39, entered the pleas earlier this month in Ramsey County District Court, according to court records. He pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct.
His decision to plead came after a jury in May found Griffin guilty of raping a woman he met along Payne Avenue last year.
The woman was walking alone along the street during an evening last August when Griffin offered to give her a ride. He later took her to an alley, pulled out a gun, and raped her.
Griffin’s attorney argued during his trial in that case that it was consensual sex, and that she engaged in it in order to get back at her then-estranged boyfriend.
The jury found otherwise.
Griffin met two of the other three women he later raped along Payne Avenue as well. Those woman were also walking alone when Griffin forced them into his car at gunpoint and raped them, court documents say.
He encountered the fourth woman on Maryland Avenue and offered her a ride home. He later sexually assaulted her after threatening her with a knife, court documents said.
Griffin’s attorney, public defender John Riemer, said he had no comment about his client’s decision to enter the guilty pleas after previously maintaining his innocence in the cases.
Griffin will be sentenced in the first case next month. He will be sentenced for the additional crimes in August.