A third rape case against a Minneapolis man has led to a sentence that will have him locked up until 2035.
Minneapolis man gets 25-year sentence after third rape case
He attacked a woman he met through an online dating app.
October 14, 2019 at 2:31PM
Clifford L. Lea, 43, was sentenced last week in Hennepin County District Court to a 25-year term in connection with a November attack at his north Minneapolis home on a woman he met a few months earlier through an online dating app.
With credit for time in jail since his arrest, Lea will serve more than 15¾ years in prison and the balance on supervised release. He'll also be on probation for another 10 years after leaving prison.
The latest case bears similarities to what prosecutors allege Lea did in 2016 to a different woman in Hopkins. However, the County Attorney's Office agreed then to drop the second-degree criminal sexual conduct count in exchange for a guilty plea to domestic assault.
Lea left prison in March 2018 after less than two years. In July 2018, he met a woman through the app and raped, bit and choked her on Nov. 25 while still on supervised release.
The 2016 complaint also revealed another earlier sex assault prosecution that led to Lea being registered for life as a predatory offender. Court records in Iowa's Scott County show that case involved a conviction in 2000 for sexually assaulting a minor. He was given a five-year prison sentence.
Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482
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