By QUINCY SNOWDON
Sentinel Colorado
AURORA, Colo. — A 26-year-old sex offender previously convicted of raping a woman in Kansas in 2011 is standing trial in Colorado this week on more than a dozen charges related to multiple violent crimes in Arapahoe County.
Prosecutors in the 18th Judicial District began trying Tre Carrasco on May 4 for a pair of cases filed out of Aurora and Cherry Hills Village in winter 2019. The trial is slated to run until May 13.
A native of Hays, Carrasco has been accused of assaulting three different women in three different cities days after he was released from a Kansas state prison Feb. 1, 2019, according to court documents.
Two days after he was released, Kansas police said Carrasco raped a woman at gunpoint in the front seat of her car in Hays.
Less than a week later, investigators accused Carrasco of attempting to kidnap a woman in Aurora while stealing her car outside of the 24-hour fitness on South Abilene Street. He’s facing felony kidnapping, robbery, aggravated car theft and other charges in connection with that incident.
The woman whose car was stolen later identified Carrasco in a police lineup by comparing him to the R&B star The Weeknd. Police agreed that Carrasco “has a passing resemblance to the same singer,” according to court documents.
And on Feb. 12, authorities identified Carrasco as the man who raped a Mexican au pair at knifepoint while the woman was working in a Cherry Hills Village home in the middle of the day. He’s been charged with felony sexual assault, robbery, burglary and other charges in that case.
Aurora police arrested Carrasco on Feb. 12 after pulling him over near the intersection of East Colfax Avenue and Galena Street. He was driving the same car that was reported stolen from the woman at the local 24-Hour fitness the week before.
He was arrested on a warrant for “rape gun” filed against him in connection to the assault in Hays nine days earlier.
Local prosecutors will simultaneously try Carrasco for the crimes in Aurora and Cherry Hills Village, according to a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office. He pleaded guilty to all charges filed against him in August 2019.
Carrasco has a history of lascivious behavior dating back more than a decade, according to court documents. He was named as a suspect in at least six other crimes in Kansas that were sexual in nature between November 2008 and July 2011, records show.
In 2008 and 2009, Carrasco was suspected of peeping into windows and tickling women’s feet and legs as they slept.
In June 2010, he was suspected of raping a woman in Hays. A year later, Carrasco was arrested after police said he chased a Hays woman walking on a street, beat her and violently sexually assaulted her.
In April 2013, Carrasco was sentenced to slightly more than eight years in prison for the July 2011 assault. He was also required to register as a sex offender in Kansas.
Carrasco incurred a litany of disciplinary infractions while in Kansas prisons between 2014 and 2018, including using stimulants, disobeying orders and disrespecting corrections officers, according to Kansas Department of Corrections records.
Carrasco has been held on a $1.1 million bond since he was arrested in Aurora in February 2019, records show. In July 2020, he pleaded guilty to a felony contraband charge and was sentenced to two years in state prison. He’s been detained at the Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility in Buena Vista since then.
Carrasco has been transferred back to the Arapahoe County jail for his court proceedings in the coming days, according to county records.