PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A Rhode Island man has been sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of repeatedly raping his then-girlfriend after becoming angry over her smoking their last cigarette.
The Providence Journal reports 36-year-old Leopoldo Belen, of Woonsocket, was sentenced Monday for the April 2014 attack.
Prosecutors say Belen violently assaulted the then-21-year-old woman, who fled her Woonsocket apartment and knocked on a neighbor’s door wearing only a bed sheet.
Belen was convicted in April on four counts of first-degree sexual assault.
Belen is facing trial in a separate case on the beating of 78-year-old Delor Cabral to death during a home invasion in 2013. He has pleaded not guilty to 13 charges.
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