20-year term for man who targeted St. Paul home at random for burglary, raped woman at gunpoint

A repeat felon has received a 20-year term for breaking into a St. Paul woman’s home that he targeted for burglary in the middle of the night and raping her at gunpoint.

Deonte Marquon Thomas, 34, of Maplewood was sentenced Tuesday in Ramsey County District Court after pleading guilty to first-degree criminal sexual conduct and first-degree burglary in connection with the break-in and sexual assault on April 15 shortly after 4 a.m. in the 300 block of S. Snelling Avenue.

With credit for time in jail since his arrest, Thomas is expected to serve about 13¼ years in prison and the balance on supervised release.

Thomas’ criminal history in Minnesota also includes convictions for theft, receiving stolen property, domestic abuse and illegal weapons possession.

According to the charges:

Officers arrived at the home in the Macalester-Groveland neighborhood, and the woman said her attacker had run off about 10 minutes earlier.

The woman said she was sleeping, then heard pounding on one side of her residence and saw a man break the door and enter. She said Thomas took cash from her purse before he raped her at gunpoint and choked her. At one point, she bit Thomas on the arm “as hard as she could” during a brief struggle for the gun, the complaint read.

Exterior surveillance video showed a pickup truck, with the license plate visible, in the alley near the woman’s house around the time of the break-in. A police check showed the pickup was registered to Thomas. A still image from a second security video of a man walking on the woman’s property was shown to her by police, and she identified him as her attacker.

After his arrest, Thomas said he was “driving around in the early morning hours … and randomly selected a house to break into,” the charges read. He admitted robbing and raping the woman but denied choking her.