Brooklyn Park man accused of sexual assault for allegedly groping 5 women, teenager

A 21-year-old Brooklyn Park man with a history of mental illness was charged Thursday in Hennepin County District with sexually assaulting a teenager, more than a month after he was charged with similarly groping at least five women.

Praise Ikechukwu Anuo Oluwinners, who was initially charged in April with five counts of criminal sexual conduct, was charged with another felony count for allegedly assaulting the teen.

Oluwinners, who remains in the county jail, has been in and out of civil commitment as recently as February for similar offenses, court records show.

According to current charges, Oluwinners reportedly groped multiple store employees in Brooklyn Park one day in March shortly after he was released from jail. He allegedly went on to grope at least four women and a 15-year-old girl in downtown Minneapolis over two days before his arrest April 14.

Brooklyn Park Police Inspector Elliot Faust said defendants like Oluwinners are not held accountable for low-level offenses because there is something broken in the system that lacks mental health resources.

"It's not until something bad happens that people realize they should do something and that's the frustrating part for us," he said. "Are we going to wait for the next worse thing?"

Oluwinners' public defender declined to comment for this story.

According to the criminal complaints:

The 15-year-old girl was crying when she told Metro Transit Police officers that she was assaulted on a bus April 11. She said Oluwinners had moved from the back of the bus to sit directly behind her and her 17-year-old brother. She said Oluwinners grabbed her breast, called her "baby" and asked for a hug. The brother confronted Oluwinners; surveillance video confirmed reports from the siblings.

The next day, another woman walked to the First Precinct in downtown Minneapolis visibly upset and crying, and told police a man had assaulted her outside the Minneapolis Central Library.

She said the man, later identified as Oluwinners, asked her for a high-five after she got off the bus. She said the library was locked and Oluwinners cornered her against the doors before grabbing her breasts.

Officers were dispatched to the same area on reports of two other women being groped by a man matching Oluwinner's description. One woman was at the Four Seasons Hotel and distraught as she told officers that a man wouldn't let her pass as she walked to work. He asked for a hug, but she declined.

Oluwinners then started grabbing her waist and butt as he rubbed his genital area on her stomach. She said he tried to push him off, but "he didn't stop until she started crying."

A third woman said she was walking on Nicollet Mall and into a building when someone grabbed her butt with both hands. She reported the incident to building security officers, who found Oluwinners at a nearby bus stop. There, a security officer saw Oluwinners trying to grope a fourth woman as she boarded the bus.

The security officers told police that a fifth woman who also worked in the building reported that Oluwinners had groped her.

Surveillance video recorded at least one of the alleged assaults. The investigation is ongoing.

Investigators learned that Oluwinners had groped two women at stores in Brooklyn Park the month prior.

Two Target employees said he approached them separately March 17 asking for a hug and when they declined he asked for a handshake. They agreed, and he assaulted one by grabbing her rear end. At Cub Foods, an employee said she was stocking shelves when he came up from behind and grabbed her by the waist. She pushed him away.

Oluwinners was arrested by Metro Transit police Feb. 27 for indecent exposure, two weeks after he was discharged from the commitment facility. The case was dismissed after he was found incompetent. He has had 20 trespassing charges dismissed since September 2022.

He will appear in court Monday, and Hennepin County has ordered that he return to civil commitment.