A 59-year-old St. Paul man was sentenced to 17 years in prison Friday for committing two rapes about 12 years apart, the latest one while he was on probation for a 2019 sexual assault.

Thao Xiong, shown in January 2025 (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

In January, Thao Xiong was charged in Ramsey County District Court with raping a 71-year-old St. Paul woman he met on Facebook. At the time of the offense, he was on probation for raping a 41-year-old woman six years earlier in St. Paul.

But he had a longtime secret, which came out in March through his DNA: He raped a woman at a Maplewood motel in 2013.

In July, Xiong pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal sexual conduct in connection with the 2013 assault and an amended charge of third-degree criminal sexual conduct in the January case.

“These are separate instances, many years between each other,” Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Andrew Johnson said at sentencing. “There are separate victims, and they absolutely deserve their own separate sentence.”

Judge Kellie Charles followed a plea agreement Xiong reached with the prosecution, giving him 13- and four-year sentences, to be served consecutively. He received credit for 399 days already served in custody.

After incarceration, he will be on lifetime conditional release and must register as a predatory offender.

2019 sexual assault

Xiong was charged with first-degree criminal sexual conduct in Ramsey County in July 2019.

Witnesses told police that a group of acquaintances had been drinking at Xiong’s St. Paul apartment and that a 41-year-old woman became drunk and ended up in his bed, the criminal complaint says. A witness later looked in the bedroom and saw Xiong on top of the woman, who was naked from the waist down.

She “finally escaped” to a different apartment, while still partially naked, the complaint says. She had scratches and bruises on her inner thighs, neck, shoulder, legs and arms.

Xiong reached a plea deal with prosecutors in February 2020 and admitted to fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct in exchange for the more serious charge being dismissed. He was sentenced to 231 days in jail, which was time that he had already served after his arrest, and put on supervised probation for 10 years.

January sexual assault

Police were dispatched to the 71-year-old woman’s apartment in St. Paul’s Summit-University neighborhood Jan. 28 after she reported she had just been forcefully sexually assaulted by a man, who was later identified as Xiong, the complaint says.

She told police someone must have given Xiong her phone number because he called, asking to meet. She agreed, and invited him over.

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When he entered the apartment, she told police, he pushed her into her bedroom, took off her clothes and raped her.

Xiong then left the apartment, although she was able to get a photograph of him, which she gave to police. She said he left in a black Jeep and gave police his license plate information.

The woman was taken to the hospital where she underwent a sexual assault examination. During the exam, she said Xiong had befriended her on Facebook a day before the assault.

Medical records show the woman was injured during the assault, and forensic samples were collected for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to analyze.

After his arrest, Xiong underwent a suspect sexual assault examination. While waiting to be booked into jail, he “spontaneously” said this was the second person who accused him of rape, the complaint says.

DNA match

According to the May complaint, a woman reported to police on July 15, 2013, that she had just been sexually assaulted at a motel off U.S. 61 in Maplewood by a man she knew as “Chue Lee,” identified in November 2020 through a DNA match as Xiong.

The woman said she had been talking with “Chue” for two days over the phone, that she did not know him previously and had assumed he got her number from someone she knew.

She said he called her on July 15 and said he was coming to Minnesota from Wisconsin and wanted her to show him around. They met in the parking lot of a St. Paul grocery store, where he suggested they get something to eat. Rather than going to a restaurant, he brought her to the motel, saying he wanted to get some rest before eating.

Xiong rented the room and once inside, locked the door and began “ripping her clothes apart,” the complaint says. She said he “overpowered” her and raped her.

She went to a hospital for a sexual assault examination the same day. A nurse examiner noted bruising to the woman’s body and she complained about areas where she said Xiong had bitten her.

The complaint says motel video shows Xiong arriving with the woman in a Toyota Prius, and leaving 45 minutes later.

An investigator in late July 2020 discovered the sexual assault kit, which had not been tested. It was brought to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and four months later an unidentified male DNA profile taken from swabs of the woman was entered into the state’s DNA databases and the National DNA Index System.

The BCA notified St. Paul police on Nov. 4, 2020, that Xiong’s DNA, obtained from his 2019 sexual assault case, matched the DNA in the 2013 assault. Police tried to contact the woman but were unsuccessful, the complaint says.

Last March, police were told DNA collected from Xiong in the January case matched the DNA found on the swabs taken from the 2013 victim, the complaint says.

Police again tried to reach the woman and were successful on April 10 after her son called to ask why they were trying to contact his mother who does not speak English. She told police through an interpreter she “had been waiting for a very long time for an update on her case and wants him prosecuted for sexually assaulting her,” the complaint says.

‘It was not my fault’

At sentencing, prosecutor Johnson told the judge that Xiong’s 2013 victim did not want to submit an impact statement. Johnson said she asked him to convey that shortly after the incident, she had a small stroke that she believed was due to stress from the sexual assault.

Johnson then read a statement from Xiong’s latest victim, who said she was still afraid of Xiong and wondered why he targeted her. “I never met him before, and do not understand why this happened,” she wrote.

Over time, she wrote, “I have come to see that it was not my fault.”

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The Transportation Security Administration is renewing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s push to end a collective bargaining agreement with airport screening officers — the second such attempt this year and one that comes just a month after the longest government shutdown on record.

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The agency said Friday the move is based on a September memo from Noem that says TSA screeners “have a primary function of national security” and therefore should not engage in collective bargaining or be represented by a union.

The American Federation of Government Employees swiftly vowed to fight the decision, calling it illegal and a violation of a federal judge’s preliminary injunction issued in June that blocked Noem’s first attempt to terminate the contract representing 47,000 workers. Emailed requests for comment were sent to TSA and Homeland Security.

TSA said it plans to rescind the current seven-year contract in January and replace it with a new “security-focused framework.” The agreement was supposed to expire in 2031.

Adam Stahl, acting TSA deputy administrator, said in a statement that airport screeners “need to be focused on their mission of keeping travelers safe.”

“Under the leadership of Secretary Noem, we are ridding the agency of wasteful and time-consuming activities that distracted our officers from their crucial work,” Stahl said.

The announcement also comes weeks after Noem held a news conference in which she handed out $10,000 bonus checks to TSA officers who she said went “above and beyond” during the 43-day shutdown, when thousands of airport screeners continued reporting for duty despite missing more than six weeks of pay during the lapse in funding.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, right, shakes hands with Transportation Security Administration Officer Monica Degro at a news conference at Harry Reid International Airport, Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Ronda Churchill)

“Merely 30 days ago, Secretary Noem celebrated TSA officers for their dedication during the longest government shutdown in history,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement. “Today, she’s announcing a lump of coal right on time for the holidays: that she’s stripping those same dedicated officers of their union rights.”

AFGE entered into the collective bargaining agreement with TSA last May. But Noem issued a memo on Feb. 27 rescinding that agreement, and TSA notified the union a week later that the contract had been terminated and all pending grievances would be deleted.

The union sued, claiming the move was retaliation for AFGE’s resistance to the Trump administration’s attacks on federal workers. A trial is currently scheduled for next year.

The Trump administration has been laying the groundwork to weaken or eliminate protections for federal workers as it moves swiftly to shrink the bureaucracy.

In granting a preliminary injunction in June, U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman of Seattle said the order was necessary to preserve the rights and benefits TSA workers have long held under union representation.

Pechman wrote that AFGE had shown in its lawsuit that Noem’s directive “constitutes impermissible retaliation,” likely violated the union’s due process, and was “arbitrary and capricious” — findings that the judge said make it likely AFGE will ultimately prevail.

A St. Paul man who authorities say shot and killed a Maplewood woman and then shot himself in the head later went live on social media to apologize, according to charges filed Friday.

The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office charged Joseph Raymond Wiggins, 57, with one count of second-degree murder in connection with the shooting death Wednesday of Amy Doverspike, 55, at her home in Maplewood.

The criminal complaint gave the following details:

At around 10:45 a.m. Wednesday, police responded to reports of a shooting at an apartment complex at 2565 Ivy Ave. E. in Maplewood. Staff at the building told authorities they heard two gunshots and then, after a pause, a third shot.

When officers arrived they smelled gunpowder and saw smoke in the air and found Doverspike lying in a pool of blood outside an apartment door next to two spent shell casings. She did not have a pulse and had gunshot wounds to her upper right thigh and her left shoulder and back.

Police attempted life saving efforts on scene. She was taken to Regions Hospital where she later was pronounced dead.

According to Maplewood police, authorities were told that Wiggins was inside the apartment and armed. Officers evacuated nearby apartments and issued a shelter-in-place order. Numerous law enforcement agencies responded including the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team, which made entry into the apartment and found Wiggins wounded from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

According to the criminal complaint, staff at the apartment building said Wiggins and Doverspike had a child who was in prison for murder and that Wiggins wanted to get back together with her. They said Doverspike did not want to be with him and Wiggins had threatened to end his own life the day before the shooting.

Wiggins’ current wife had called police to say she believed he had shot someone else and himself. She later provided authorities with texts he had sent her asking God to forgive him and saying he was scared and dying.

‘I killed her. I’m dying. I can’t get up,” he texted her, according to the criminal complaint. He also texted her two pictures of his face with the gunshot wound.

The criminal complaint said he also made a live Facebook video after he shot himself: “It appeared Wiggins’ jaw was broken and half his teeth were missing,” the complaint said. “(His) injury made it difficult to understand what he said in the video besides that he was sorry and his injury hurt.”

Wiggins was given first aid and taken to Regions Hospital, where he remained as of Friday in critical condition. He was expected to survive with an anticipated lengthy hospital stay.

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By KONSTANTIN TOROPIN

WASHINGTON (AP) — After a spate of deadly accidents that have claimed the lives of 20 service members in the past four years, a Navy report acknowledges that the military failed to address a growing series of issues with the V-22 Osprey aircraft since it took flight almost 20 years ago.

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“The cumulative risk posture of the V-22 platform has been growing since initial fielding,” according to the report by Naval Air Systems Command released Friday. It added that the office in charge of the aircraft “has not promptly implemented … fixes to mitigate existing risks.”

“As a result, risks continue to accumulate,” the report said.

The Associated Press reported last year that the most serious types of accidents for the Osprey, which is the only aircraft to fly like a plane but convert to land like a helicopter, spiked between 2019 and 2023 and that, unlike other aircraft, the problems did not level off as the years passed.

“As the first and only military tiltrotor aircraft, it remains the most aero-mechanically complex aircraft in service and continues to face unresolved legacy material, safety, and technical challenges,” the report said.

Commissioned in 2023 by NAVAIR, the Navy command responsible for the purchase and maintenance of aircraft, the investigation reveals that the Osprey not only has the “second highest number of catastrophic risks across all Naval Aviation platforms” but that those risks have gone unresolved for an average of more than 10 years.

By contrast, the average across other aircraft in the Navy’s inventory is six years.

The Navy’s response

Vice Adm. John Dougherty, commander of NAVAIR, said the service is “committed to improving the V-22’s performance and safeguarding the warfighters who rely on this platform.” He offered no details on any actions taken for years of failing to address the Osprey’s risks.

The command did not respond to questions about what, if any, accountability measures were taken in response to the findings.

The lack of details on accountability for missteps also came up when the Navy recently released investigations into four accidents during a U.S.-led campaign against Yemen’s Houthi rebels. A senior Navy official, who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity to offer more candid details, said that he didn’t believe the service had an obligation to make accountability actions public.

Risks were allowed to build up, the report says

The investigation lays much of the responsibility for the problems on the Osprey’s Joint Program Office. Part of the mission for this office, which operates within NAVAIR, is making sure the aircraft can be safely flown by the Marine Corps, the Navy and the Air Force, all of which use different versions of the aircraft for different missions.

The report found that this office “did not effectively manage or address identified risks in a timely manner, allowing them to accumulate,” and it faced “challenges” in implementing safety fixes across all three services.

Two major issues involve the Osprey’s complicated transmission. The aircraft has a host of gearboxes and clutches that, like a car’s transmission, are crucial to powering each propeller behind the Osprey’s unique tilting capability. The system also helps connect the two sides of the aircraft to keep it flying in the event of engine failure.

One problem is an issue in which the transmission system essentially shreds itself from the inside due to a power imbalance in the engines. That brought down a Marine Corps Osprey, killing five Marines in California in 2022.

The other issue is a manufacturing defect in the gears within the transmission that renders them more brittle and prone to failure. That was behind the crash of an Air Force Osprey off the coast of Japan in November 2023 that killed eight service members.

The report reveals that this manufacturing issue went back to 2006 but the Osprey’s Joint Program Office did not formally assess or accept this risk until March 2024.

Besides these mechanical issues, the report found that the program office failed to ensure uniform maintenance standards for the aircraft, while determining that 81% of all the accidents that the Ospreys have had on the ground were due to human error.

Recommendations for the issues revealed

The report offers a series of recommendations for each of the issues it uncovered. They range from rudimentary suggestions like consolidating best maintenance practices across all the services to more systemic fixes like developing a new, midlife upgrade program for the Osprey.

While fixes for both mechanical issues are also in the report, it seems that it will take until 2034 and 2033 for the military to fully deal with both, respectively.

Naval Air Systems Command did not reply when asked if it had a message for troops who will fly in the aircraft in the meantime.

Watchdog also releases Osprey report

The Government Accountability Office, an independent watchdog serving Congress, made similar conclusions and recommendations in a separate report released Friday.

The GAO blamed most Osprey accidents on part failures and human error while service members flew or maintained the aircraft. It determined that the military hasn’t fully “identified, analyzed, or responded” to all of the Osprey’s safety risks.

The GAO said the Pentagon should improve its process for addressing those risks, while adding more oversight to ensure they are resolved. Another recommendation is for the Navy, Air Force and Marines to routinely share information on hazards and accidents to help prevent mishaps.

Associated Press writer Ben Finley contributed to this report.