Saint-Paul man convicted of two sexual assaults five years apart

One of Francisco Alejandro Chale's sexual assault victims stood before him in court Friday and listened as his sister read a statement on his behalf.

“I went out that night to hang out with my best friend,” she said. “He went out that night to hurt someone. »

Chale, 29, of St. Paul, pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal sexual conduct in April for raping the woman in May 2022 in St. Paul after she got into his car thinking it was a Uber after a night of drinking in a city center. Minneapolis bar.

Chale also pleaded guilty to a second-degree criminal sexual conduct charge filed in June 2022 for assaulting a woman in his car in St. Paul in February 2017.

Ramsey County District Judge Joy Bartscher entered into a plea agreement, which called for consecutive sentences for each offense, and sentenced Chale to a total of 19 1/2 years in prison. Charges of kidnapping to facilitate a crime and false imprisonment were dismissed, per the agreement.

Chale has an open third-degree criminal sexual conduct case in Hennepin County, with charges alleging he assaulted a vulnerable adult in his van in Richfield in May 2021. A jury trial is scheduled for July 8.

I thought it was an Uber

According to the criminal complaint in the 2022 attack, a resident of the 700 block of Slate Street in St. Paul's West Side reported around 4 a.m. on May 15 that a distraught woman knocked on his door and said she had just been raped by a stranger.

Officers found the woman walking around crying and wearing a partially torn dress. She was transported to Regions Hospital, where she made a statement to police and underwent an examination for sexual assault.

She said she got into a car she thought was an Uber in Minneapolis and was taken against her will to St. Paul where the suspect, later identified as Chale, threatened to kill her and raped her. She said she managed to escape from the man and ran to a nearby house.

She told police that she and two friends, identified as AG and DJS, went to a bar and met other people. The woman said she had been drinking “a lot” and that at closing time, she and AG decided to walk to DJS’s apartment, the charges state.

The woman reported that she was fading in and out of consciousness and lost AG while they were walking. She said she became more alert when she realized she was in the passenger seat of a car driven by a stranger she believed to be Hispanic.

When the vehicle stopped, the woman said she tried to open the car door because she felt something was wrong. She said the man then “jumped” on her from the driver’s seat and raped her, the complaint states. She said she somehow fell out of the vehicle.

The woman's sister told police she received a text message from him containing the word “Help” around 3:30 a.m.