A young woman who got separated from her friend outside a bar in Minneapolis after a night of heavy drinking this past fall woke up in a stranger’s bed without her clothes on, authorities say.
The man she found lying next to her, Tyreese Willis Harris, was charged via warrant Wednesday with two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. He is accused of raping the 23-year-old in the early morning hours of Nov. 18, according to the criminal complaint filed against him in Ramsey County District Court.
Harris, 42, was convicted of attempted aggravated sexual assault in Illinois back in 1999, and was subsequently convicted of failing to register for predatory offender status in the state in 2006, the complaint said.
The young woman went to a Minnesota Wild game with a female friend last Nov. 17 and the two wound up visiting a few bars in Minneapolis afterward, authorities say. The two ended up at the 508 Club, where they drank shots of tequila before calling an Uber to take them home.
As they waited for it arrive, the woman’s friend got a text from the Uber driver indicating he couldn’t find them, so she got up to flag him down, the complaint said.
When she went back to get her friend on the steps, the young woman was gone, authorities say.
The 23-year-old later told police that she woke up the next morning in a stranger’s bed without her pants or underwear in an apartment in St. Paul. She asked the man in bed next to her, Harris, how she got there, and he told her that his friend dropped her off at his place because he was too drunk to drive, the complaint said.
He added that he also felt too drunk to drive her home, so she crashed at his place, the woman told police.
When she asked if they had sex, Harris told her no, according to the complaint.
After she found her clothes, which were wet, Harris gave her a ride back to her home in Minneapolis, where she found police there taking a missing person report on her, legal documents say.
She told officers that she couldn’t remember what happened the previous night but that she was “sore all over,” the complaint said.
She was taken to Hennepin County Medical Center for a sexual assault examination, where staff found bruises on her arm “consistent with someone holding or grabbing her,” red raised bumps on her hairline “consistent with her hair being pulled,” and injuries “consistent with strangulation and/or forced penetration,” the complaint said. The woman also had injuries to her genitals and complained of neck pain.
Video footage captured on city cameras reportedly showed her walking away from the 508 Club alone on First Avenue before going out of view.
Police interviewed Harris about the incident, and he told officers that his friend ran into the woman while she was drunk at a bar in downtown Minneapolis, and asked if he could drop her off to him, the complaint said.
Harris said he never met the woman before, and acknowledged she was drunk that evening, according to legal documents.
They went back to his place, he said, adding that the two just ended up “kickin’ it” that night and not having sex, legal documents say. He added that it was the woman’s decision to take off her pants and underwear.
When asked about the injuries found on her body, Harris said the woman fell as she was getting out of his car, the complaint said.
Doctors who examined the woman at HCMC determined that her injuries “were not consistent with a fall from being intoxicated,” according to the charges.
Harris agreed to provide a DNA sample to police, which matched the sample taken from the young woman during her sexual assault exam, authorities say.
No attorney was listed for Harris in court records. He is expected to make his first appearance on the charges Thursday afternoon.