A St. Paul man with previous convictions for murder, sexual assault and kidnapping is being held on $200,000 bail after he was found this month with a beaten, bloodied woman unresponsive in his bathtub.
Anthony DeWalt, 60, was charged with first-degree assault causing great bodily harm and second-degree sexual assault on Friday in Ramsey County.
At the time of his arrest, he was under intensive supervised release, according to the Minnesota Department of Corrections, and required to meet with his parole officer four times weekly, along with other restrictions.
That supervision stemmed from a sexual assault and kidnapping conviction in 2005 after a jury trial in Wright County. DeWalt was found guilty of several crimes for viciously dragging a woman by her mouth to the edge of a wooded area near a home and raping her. He fought a man who tried to stop the assault and held scissors to the woman’s neck until police arrived.
Wright County sought aggravated sentencing in the case, and District Judge Dale Mossey gave DeWalt life in prison.
But the state Court of Appeals reversed Mossey’s decision, ruling the court didn’t have the authority to hand down a life sentence without convening a grand jury. DeWalt was then sentenced to 12 years in prison.
While behind bars, he was convicted twice for assault of a corrections employee and once for fraud after sending his SNAP benefits card from prison to his sister in Illinois.
DeWalt was moved from prison to supervised release in October 2023.