Rhode Island man convicted for raping girlfriend for smoking last cigarette
In a separate case, Belen has been accused of beating 78-year-old Delor Cabral to death during a home invasion in 2013.
Providence: A Rhode Island man has been convicted of repeatedly raping his then-girlfriend after he became angry that she smoked their last cigarette.
The Providence Journal reported the attorney general’s office as saying a Superior Court jury convicted 36-year-old Leopoldo Belen of Woonsocket of four counts of first-degree sexual assault for the April 2014 attack.
Prosecutors said Belen violently assaulted the then-21-year-old woman, who fled the Woonsocket apartment wearing only a bed sheet. A neighbour called 911.
Belen is accused in a separate case of beating 78-year-old Delor Cabral to death during a home invasion in 2013. Authorities have said that Cabral, a landlord, was trying to defend one of his tenants from being robbed.
Belen has pleaded not guilty to 13 charges. His lawyer didn’t immediately comment.