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>
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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>
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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>
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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's house. <br>
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On Tuesday, Leblanc was being held at the Gaston County Jail on $100,000 bond. <br>
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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>
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During the four-day trial, Leblanc maintained he'd had consensual sex with the girls. <br>
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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>
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Richmond County District Attorney Danny Craig, who prosecuted Leblanc, said he talked with police and prosecutors in Gaston County after hearing of Leblanc'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>
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Leblanc moved to Gastonia about two weeks ago and had been staying with his brother at the Ashbrook Village complex in Gastonia.
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