Cedar Rapids man pleads guilty to kidnapping, sex assault

A man who kidnapped, assaulted and tortured his estranged wife last May pleaded guilty today to five charges that could keep him in prison for 22 years.

Shawn Kruse, 32, of Cedar Rapids, entered an Alford plea in Linn County District Court to second-degree kidnapping, second-degree sexual abuse, going armed with intent, assault while participating in a felony and eluding.

By entering an Alford plea, Kruse doesn't admit to the offenses but agrees sufficient evidence exists that a jury could convict him.

His trial was set for next week.

Mark Brown, Kruse's attorney, said Kruse made the Alford plea because he doesn't remember the details of the assault on May 31 after he crashed his car into an embankment fleeing from police.

Kruse was in an induced coma for about a week after the crash on Highway 30. He led police on a high-speed chase reaching up to 110 mph before his car struck a guard rail and rolled into a ditch. Kruse suffered injuries in the accident and remains paralyzed from the waist down.

Kruse attacked his estranged wife in the kitchen of her home, where he no longer lived, hitting her more than 50 times in the head, according to a police report. He then gagged her, bound her legs and hands with construction tape and an electrical cord and dragged her into the basement, where he raped her and threatened her with a hacksaw.

The assault lasted many hours, and when Kruse left to get a shotgun, the woman managed to call her mother on a cell phone and her mother called 911, according to police. Kruse came back to the house with a gun, but drove away when he saw police, starting the chase.

Kruse's sentencing is set for Feb. 5.