St. Paul Man Arrested in Connection with Rape of Woman in Burnsville

A St. Paul man was arrested this week on a warrant after pleading guilty earlier this summer to raping a woman in Burnsville while she was drunk.

John Jonathan Head, 29, pleaded guilty in June to third-degree criminal sexual conduct. A warrant for his arrest was issued when he failed to appear at a hearing this week, and he was arrested Thursday.

According to the criminal complaint, Burnsville police were called to a home in the 1800 block of Riverwood Drive on July 15, 2009, to investigate a disturbance in the yard.

When police arrived, they spoke to two witnesses who said a man had brought his wife outside and seated her in a car. The woman was “barely clothed, with nothing on beneath her waist and a T-shirt around her arm and neck area, not covering her breast,” the complaint says.

Police said it appeared that the woman was intoxicated.

Witnesses told police that a group of people, including Head, had been drinking for several hours inside the house. The victim and the homeowner were the only two women in the group.

The man whose wife was seated in the car was escorted out of the house about 2:30 a.m. by police, but rode back on his bicycle, according to the complaint. He told police that when he returned, he looked in a window and couldn’t see anyone other than the homeowner, who was passed out with her head on the kitchen table.

He told police he went inside and upstairs to a loft area and encountered a man running past with his underwear around his knees, pulling them up as he ran. He said he found his wife in the middle of the loft, passed out, with her shirt around her neck.

He told police he believed that all the men had raped his wife, whom he dragged out of the home.

A subsequent forensic examination found that the woman had been raped by three or more people, according to the complaint. The predominant male DNA profile obtained through the examination matched Head’s profile, though he denied having any contact with the victim.

Head will be sentenced Sept. 27 in Dakota County District Court in Hastings.