Las Vegas police seek possible additional victims in sexual assaults

Las Vegas police are trying to determine whether a man suspected of raping multiple women at gunpoint my have victimized other women, but it’s not the first time police have searched for the man’s potential victims.

Lajuan Cole, 25, was arrested Sept. 8 after the Metropolitan Police Department’s sexual assault section received three reports from August to September of sexual assaults that apparently were the work of a single attacker, according to a news release sent Friday.

Police said that Cole met two of the victims online and another in his apartment complex. Police believe he would meet up with the women, then sexually assault them at gunpoint, the release said.

He was previously arrested in Clark County in August 2013 on suspicion of a felony count of robbery and five gross misdemeanor counts of open or gross lewdness, court records show.

Police in 2013 also believed that additional women may have been the victim of the then-19-year-old, after he allegedly groped a woman who was walking her child to a bus stop.

Cole was arrested in September on suspicion of two counts of first-degree kidnapping, five counts of sexual assault and attempted robbery, all with a deadly weapon, Las Vegas Justice Court records show. An arrest report in the case only details the assault of two women in early September.

A woman called police on Sept. 5 to report that early that morning she had been raped at gunpoint, according to Cole’s arrest report. She said that before the assault, she was trying to meet up with a man she met on the “dating website” megapersonals.com.

At the apartment complex, she asked a man to help her find the correct unit. That man, later identified by police as Cole, showed her a handgun and led her to a nearby trailer park, where he raped her at gunpoint.

The next night, police received a call from a different woman who said she had been raped at gunpoint. It was “immediately evident” that the assault was related to the assault from Sept. 5, the report said.

The woman said she agreed to meet up with a man who contacted her on megapersonals.com to exchange money for sex, the report said. She arrived at a home he directed her to, but when she knocked another woman came to the door, and she assumed it was the incorrect address.

As she was walking away from the home, a man greeted her and began leading her away. After walking for “a long distance” he pulled out a gun, the report said.

The woman told police he said “something to the effect of, ‘You think this is the first time I’ve done this?,’” before he assaulted her and attempted to steal her phone.

Detectives later identified Cole after a DNA sample taken from one of the women was matched with him in the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, the report said. Cole had been released from prison in May, the report said.

Cole was indicted by a grand jury in District Court on Oct. 10, court records show. He was indicted on felony charges of attempted sexual assault with a deadly weapon, two counts of first-degree kidnapping with a deadly weapon, and three counts of sexual assault with a deadly weapon.

He pleaded guilty in District Court to six gross misdemeanor charges of open or gross lewdness in September 2014. He was sentenced to probation not to exceed three years, court records show. He also had to register as a sex offender.

In December 2015 he plead guilty to a felony count of conspiracy to commit robbery, and in November 2017 he plead guilty to owning a firearm as a felon, District Court records show.

A trial in the 2019 case is scheduled for Feb. 24. He remained in the Clark County Detention Center on Friday with a $250,000 bail, jail records show.

Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.