A case against a man charged with raping a woman at knifepoint five years ago in St. Paul was recently dismissed due to his mental illness and indeterminate civil commitment, according to court records.
Avery Darius Oliphant, 27, faced first-degree criminal sexual conduct in Ramsey County District Court after prosecutors said he raped a 40-year-old woman he’d just met on the Green Line light-rail train the morning of July 9, 2019.
Oliphant is under a civil commitment at Minnesota State Security Hospital in St. Peter with no time limit after being found mentally ill and dangerous to the public last year.
Oliphant was first deemed incompetent to stand trial on the charge in May 2021 due to mental illness. After a series of evaluations, his criminal case was dismissed in August by the court pursuant to state law involving competency proceedings.
The law states that criminal charges — with the exception of murder — must be dismissed three years after an incompetency finding unless the prosecutor files a written notice of intent to prosecute once the defendant regains competency.
An intent to prosecute was not filed by the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office, which spokesman Dennis Gerhardstein said this week is typical in cases where the person is found to be mentally ill and dangerous and there is an indeterminate civil commitment ordered by the court.
Arrested five weeks later
The criminal complaint said Oliphant invited the woman to smoke marijuana and so they got off the train around 6:30 a.m. and went to an industrial area off University Avenue. He asked her if she would have sex with him and she told him no. Oliphant pulled out a knife and proceeded to rape her.
At some point, she tried to run and started screaming for help, but Oliphant caught up with her and hit her in the face and choked her, the complaint said.
She said he forced her at knifepoint to go inside a Subway to clean herself up. The store was closed at the time, but its door was open. She went into the bathroom, where she texted her boyfriend to alert him to the assault, but Oliphant busted inside and forced her to strip down so he could rape her a second time, the complaint said.
She saw another chance to escape and ran out of the bathroom naked and screaming, which surveillance footage from inside Subway showed.
Officers were able to pull a photo of the suspect from the footage, and circulated it among area law enforcement. Oliphant, of Minneapolis, was arrested by police five weeks later, on Aug. 16, along University Avenue in St. Paul.
The victim identified him in a six-person line-up, the complaint said. He denied involvement in the attack.
Oliphant’s criminal record includes convictions for first-degree attempted robbery in 2016, interference with an emergency call in 2017 and theft in 2018.
‘Dangerousness to the public’
An order committing Oliphant as mentally ill was issued by the court in June 2021 and additional extensions and a recommitment followed.
A petition to commit him as mentally ill and dangerous was filed in April 2022. After a two-phase hearing that included testimony from psychiatric doctors who had evaluated Oliphant, the court civilly committed him in September 2023 for an indefinite period of time.
In his order, Ramsey County District Judge Timothy Mulrooney noted that Oliphant said he was “cured” and “continues to lack insight into his mental illness.”
“As a result, he remains likely to be noncompliant with medications and continue with violent conduct if discharged into the community,” Mulrooney wrote. “Indeed, all three experts on this case have urged (Oliphant) be retained within the secure State Psychiatric Hospital at St. Peter for long-term treatment of mental illness and due to his dangerousness to the public.”
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