Supreme Court Won’t Hear Rochester Rapist’s Appeal

St. Paul, MN (KROC-AM News) - A Rochester man sent to prison for sexually assaulting a juvenile girl has run out of appeals.

Forty-year-old Rafael Earl Steele was charged with sexually assaulting and impregnating a teenage girl. Court documents say the criminal complaint was filed after genetic testing identified him as the father of an infant born at a Mayo Clinic facility in Rochester in the fall of 2022. The mother was a 15-year-old girl.

The criminal complaint in the case stated that the victim was 14 years old when she became pregnant. She initially told investigators that an unidentified teenage boy was the father but later offered police "another inconsistent hypothesis for the origin of the pregnancy."

Steele was sentenced to 12 1/2 years in prison and 10 years of supervised release after he entered a guilty plea to a first-degree criminal sexual conduct charge in January.

Following his conviction, the Rochester man filed an appeal and asked the Minnesota Court of Appeals to overturn his sentence. Steele unsuccessfully argued that the judge in the case abused their discretion by denying his request for a downward departure from state guidelines. In its ruling, the appeals court cited statements made by Steele that called into question his claims that he was amenable to probation.

Get our free mobile app

Steele then filed an appeal with the Minnesota Supreme Court. The Supreme Court website now indicates that it has declined to hear the case.