Gastonia rape suspect arrested after his acquittal in Georgia

GASTONIA, N.C. - A month after a Georgia jury acquitted him of rape charges involving three teen-age girls, a 19-year-old man is facing charges he raped a woman in North Carolina. <br> <br> Aaron John Leblanc was arrested Monday and charged with first-degree rape after police say his 24-year-old neighbor was attacked in her Gaston County apartment. <br> <br> The woman told police a man knocked on her door about 7 a.m. Monday and got her to let him in by telling her his plumbing was broken. <br> <br> The man raped and hit her while holding a weapon, which investigators declined to describe. The woman escaped and called police on her cell phone as she drove to a friend&#39;s house. <br> <br> On Tuesday, Leblanc was being held at the Gaston County Jail on $100,000 bond. <br> <br> On Feb. 21, a jury found Leblanc not guilty of nine charges in the separate sexual assaults of three teen-age girls in Augusta, Ga. <br> <br> During the four-day trial, Leblanc maintained he&#39;d had consensual sex with the girls. <br> <br> A jury heard the case six months after Leblanc pleaded guilty to the three Georgia rapes as part of a plea bargain that would have had him serve a 20-year prison sentence. A judge rejected the plea arrangement, calling the sentence too lenient. <br> <br> Richmond County District Attorney Danny Craig, who prosecuted Leblanc, said he talked with police and prosecutors in Gaston County after hearing of Leblanc&#39;s arrest in North Carolina. Craig declined to comment further, saying he did not want to jeopardize the chances for a successful prosecution in Gaston County. <br> <br> Leblanc moved to Gastonia about two weeks ago and had been staying with his brother at the Ashbrook Village complex in Gastonia.