MANKATO — With her family in the back of the courtroom for support, 24-year-old Chloe Taber stood to read her statement about how the sexual assault committed against her when she was 14 has impacted her for the last decade.
“I have struggled in numerous ways, some obvious and some not so obvious,” she said during the sentencing Monday of her attacker, 28-year-old Lazarous Lazaro Thomas. “In the short time after the attack, I struggled with feeling extremely violated and dirty.”
Taber went on to say she did everything she could to feel safer, including switching bedrooms to be closer to her father.
The attack occurred Sept. 18, 2015, when a man climbed through her west Mankato bedroom window in the middle of the night, according to court records. He threatened to kill her during the sex assault, then went off into the night afterward.
For the next eight years Taber, who now lives near the Twin Cities, wondered who and where the man was, until a phone call came in over her lunch break. Mankato police told her a DNA match had linked a suspect to the attack that night.
Thomas, who was 19 years old at the time of the 2015 incident, caused a commotion in the courtroom Monday when he stood up in anger as Judge Mark Betters sentenced him to 30 years in prison with credit for 694 days served. “I’m done,” Thomas said as he stood up and attempted to leave.
Thomas was charged with four felonies for first-, second-, third and fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct in Blue Earth County District Court in July 2023. A judge found him guilty on all four counts.
Feeling closure
Taber told The Free Press after the hearing that the sentencing felt like relief almost impossible to explain in words.
“I was really, really nervous in there. Especially at the end when he kind of freaked out. That scared me quite a bit,” she said.
“But after he got sentenced and I was out of there … it felt like I’d been carrying something way too heavy for way too long.”
Taber went on to say the moment gave her closure.
“I thought that all this time that I’ve kind of put it behind me and moved on, but as of today, that’s definitely not what happened over the years. It’s always been there. It’s always been on my back. It’s always been part of my day to day, and now with this being over, I don’t have to carry that with me anymore.”
The hearing
During the hearing, Thomas’ defense said he should only serve 199 months, or 16.5 years, in prison, arguing that the state had evidence for years.
In Taber’s case, an examination at the hospital led to investigators collecting DNA samples within hours of the 2015 incident. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension entered the DNA into databases.
Using its DNA profile from 2015, the BCA informed the Mankato Department of Public Safety that it had linked Thomas to the incident in June 2022. He was charged for a string of offenses in May and June 2022, ranging from drug possession in Blue Earth County to financial transaction fraud in Scott County to trespassing in Waseca County. Earlier in the year he was charged with burglary in Blue Earth County.
The criminal complaint in the sexual assault case states another DNA sample from Thomas confirmed the link to Taber’s assault in 2015.
The defense also asked Judge Betters to consider letters of support written for Thomas.
Thomas said in a statement that he believed he was wrongly convicted.
Betters said there was no indication there had been an intentional delay in examining the evidence.
WHAT’S NEXT
During the hearing, prosecuting attorney Todd Kosovich complimented Taber’s courage.
Taber said she was thinking about stories she knew.
“I know a lot of people who had been sexually assaulted, abused by family members, raped by strangers. It’s so common, but nobody ever speaks about it, so nothing ever happens about it. That needs to change, but I also know that if we don’t do something different, there’s never going to be any change,” she said.
Taber said she’s happy with the sentence, adding she was originally worried her attacker would get a slap on the wrist.
“It seems like that’s kind of how it usually goes. It makes me believe there was some sort of turn for the better, and hopefully in future cases that they see, they’ll sentence very similarly,” she said.
Taber said in the future she hopes to volunteer as an agent for RAINN, a national sexual assault hotline.
“I’ve been considering doing that for a while. I’ve used it on and off over the years, quite a bit in the last few months now just because it was a safe place that I could talk to somebody,” she said.
“It has helped me so much with courage and when I’m feeling like I can’t handle it. The people on there are so kind and helpful that I never leave the chat feeling down like I was when I went into it.”
Taber’s gofundme site is https://tinyurl.com/y9yk8bjx