MINNEAPOLIS, MN — A 19-year-old Brooklyn Center man told police "I tried to rape her" after allegedly breaking into a south Minneapolis home and attacking a woman with a taser and a screwdriver, according to charging documents.
Cordero Orlando Ratcliff Jr. was charged this week in Hennepin County District Court with first-degree criminal sexual conduct, first-degree burglary of an occupied dwelling and first-degree burglary involving assault.
Prosecutors say officers responded to a report of an assault at a Minneapolis home on July 31. A woman inside told police she was watching television when Ratcliff, a stranger to her, entered the living room naked from the waist down.
According to the criminal complaint, Ratcliff approached the woman with a screwdriver, used a taser on her neck, legs and stomach, and attempted to sexually assault her as she fought back and yelled for help.
A second woman in the home told officers she came out of her office after hearing the first woman yell for Ratcliff to stop.
She said she saw Ratcliff assaulting the other woman and that he then approached her with the taser before she was able to shut a door and stop him.
Officers found and arrested Ratcliff near the home a short time later based on descriptions from the 911 call, and both women identified him in a show up, according to the complaint.
Police say Ratcliff admitted to entering the home without permission and to having the taser and screwdriver. He told police he had never been to the residence, did not know anyone who lived there, and had taken a bus to south Minneapolis with no destination in mind before the break-in.
Ratcliff remains in custody on $250,000 bail with a no contact order regarding the victim, court records show. If convicted on the criminal sexual conduct charge, he faces up to 30 years in prison.
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