Man Faces
Hate-Crime Charge in Assault on Lesbian

A Hudson, Wis., man is facing charges of with beating a woman after she quelled his flirting by telling him she is a lesbian. Twenty-seven-year-old Dustan Charles Warren is accused of holding her to the floor and threatening to rape and kill her in November after a party at her house, according to the Pioneer Press of St. Paul, Minn.

The woman testified about the attack at a hearing Thursday in St. Croix County court in Wisconsin. The county prosecutor has added a hate-crime modifier to the charges lodged against Warren last week, which consist of attempted second-degree sexual assault, aggravated battery, second-degree reckless endangerment, false imprisonment, and misdemeanor bail-jumping.

Warren arrived at the woman's party uninvited on November 26. She testified on Thursday that Warren kept groping her through the evening. After everyone left and she had gone to sleep, she said, she woke up at some point during the night to find him pinning her down with his knees. He hit her and said she would do what he wanted.

According to the PioneerPress, she told Hudson police that Warren pointed a knife to her as he hit her, threatening to rape and kill her. She said at the hearing that she was willing to fight him to the death. Another man who had been at the party said he eventually returned and helped get Warren off the woman.

Warren is being held in the St. Croix County Jail. (Michelle Garcia, Advocate.com)