The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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April 15, 2009

Plea in kidnapping case

Lehrke charged with kidnapping woman twice

By Dan Nienaber

MANKATO — Prosecutors plan to request a four-year prison term for a 21-year-old Janesville man who had been charged with kidnapping the same woman twice.

Justin Peder Lehrke pleaded guilty to one felony charge of first-degree burglary during a hearing Wednesday. Several other felony charges — including kidnapping, criminal sexual conduct and using a drug to facilitate a crime — were dismissed in a plea agreement.

The charges stemmed from two incidents that took place about a month apart last fall. Both incidents involved the same victim, a 20-year-old woman who knew Lehrke. She accused him of kidnapping her and sexually assaulting her in September, then kidnapping her again and attempting to take her to Florida in October. He had been released from jail after posting a $125,000 bond.

Michael Hanson, assistant Blue Earth County attorney, said the victim and her family approved of the plea agreement. Lehrke will be required to register as a predatory offender, stay away from the victim and pay restitution.

“We talked with her and her parents quite a bit about the agreement,” Hanson said. “It was done with her wishes in mind.”

A pre-sentence investigation will be completed before Lehrke is sentenced.

Lehrke’s attorney, Daniel Guerrero, said he would be requesting probation for Lehrke, who has been in jail since being arrested in Kentucky in October. Guerrero said Lehrke wanted to resolve the matter without putting the victim through a trial. He was scheduled to go to trial Wednesday.

“He’s a young man who made a mistake,” Guerrero said Wednesday. “We hope that, with the resolution today, he will have a shot at a better future.”

Lehrke was arrested Sept. 4 after Blue Earth County Sheriff’s deputies tracked his cell phone signal and found him at Wildwood County Park near St. Clair. The victim had reported he had kidnapped her and sexually assaulted her three days earlier.

Detectives were planning to interview the victim the afternoon of Sept. 4. Authorities looked for Lehrke after Waseca County reported he had left a suicidal telephone message with a woman there.

The victim was with Lehrke when he was arrested in Calvert City, Ky., on Oct. 4. Her mother had called the Blue Earth County Sheriff’s Department the night before to report she was concerned her daughter had been abducted by Lehrke.

Authorities called Lehrke on his cell phone and the victim was able to send text messages to her mother and sister. Authorities tracked the cell phone transmissions to the St. Louis area.

Lehrke was traveling in a car that had been taken from his grandmother’s home in Minneapolis, according to police reports. A rifle, handgun, ammunition, two military knives, plastic zip ties, vodka bottles and a bottle of pills were found in the trunk.

The victim told Mankato police that Lehrke had been waiting for her when she returned home Oct. 3. She said he bound her hands with one of the zip ties and forced her to drink an orange juice mixture that he said contained morphine.

Blood tests later came back negative for several types of drugs, including morphine, according to police records.

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