An Eagan man faces up to 30 years in prison for sneaking into a woman’s first-floor apartment and physically and sexually assaulting her.
Ricardo Roberto Mahkwah Diaz, 27, of Eagan, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Dakota County District Court to one count of first-degree criminal conduct in connection with the September 2023 attack. Two other counts will be dismissed at sentencing as part of plea agreement with the prosecution.
Ricardo Roberto Mahkwah Diaz (Courtesy of the Dakota County Sheriff’s Office)
A 34-year-old Eagan woman told police at a hospital that a man she didn’t know came into her bedroom and hit her head with a handgun and raped her, according to a police report and the criminal complaint. Diaz was arrested after police found him sleeping in her bed.
Prosecutors will seek a 30-year prison term based on the aggravated factor that the offense was committed at her home, where she had an expectation of privacy, the plea document said. The defense can ask for a term no less than 12 years.
Diaz remains jailed ahead of sentencing, which is scheduled for Feb. 5 before Judge Tanya O’Brien.
Minnesota court records show Diaz was civilly committed as mentally ill in January 2020, August 2021, July 2022 and June 2024. He was found to be mentally competent in November and entered his guilty plea a day before jury selection in a scheduled trial.
According to the police report and criminal complaint:
Eagan police were dispatched to Fairview Ridges Hospital in Burnsville around 6:15 a.m. Sept. 23, 2023, on a report of a sexual assault that occurred that morning. The woman had cuts and abrasions on her face and head and appeared to be in shock.
She told an officer she was watching videos and trying to fall asleep when a man, who police later identified as Diaz, came into her bedroom between 3:40 and 4 a.m. She asked him who he was and told him to get out.
Diaz said he was going to sexually assault her, then jumped on top of her. She struggled to get him off, but he pulled out a handgun and struck her repeatedly on the side of her head, hitting her harder after she began to scream.
The officer saw cuts on her hand and a possible broken finger “from using her hands to protect her head,” the complaint said. “(She) also had a bite mark on her neck.”
She said she continued to struggle with the attacker, who put all of his weight on her. He became angry when she turned away from looking at him while he sexually assaulted her, she told police.
She said she was afraid he was going to kill her “as he never attempted to hide his identity,” the complaint said. She told him to leave, but he refused. She was able to escape the apartment and drive to the hospital.
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Diaz was arrested around 7:30 a.m. when officers went to the woman’s apartment located west of Cedar Avenue and north of Cliff Road and found him sleeping in her bed. His hands were covered in blood, and he had no cuts or other injuries.
Officers recovered a handgun in the apartment that had been reported stolen this year in Robbinsdale.
Later, while at the police department, he declined to give a statement, but without prompting said, “I (expletive) up,” according to the complaint.
Police said they found no signs of forced entry to the home and they believed Diaz went through an unlocked patio door.
Most sexual assaults are committed by someone known to a victim; about 31 percent are perpetrated by a stranger, according to RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network).
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