Carr Hagerman, a Minnesota Renaissance Festival official best known as the Rat Catcher character, was charged Tuesday in Scott County District Court in the alleged rape of a photographer on the festival grounds in September.

Hagerman, 59, of Richfield, has been charged with two felony counts of criminal-sexual conduct. Each count has a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison and a $40,000 fine. He was transferred Friday from the Hennepin County jail to the Scott County jail in Shakopee, where he was being held without bail.

Hagerman denied any wrongdoing, telling police that he was aware of several people making allegations against him. He admitted to knowing the victim, but stated that he and the victim were never alone together and did not have a sexual relationship.

According to the criminal complaint, a 32-year-old woman told police that on Sept. 23, 2017, Hagerman, the entertainment director for the festival, offered to take her to the upstairs room of a building on the grounds called Bad Manor to take pictures from an elevated vantage point.

Once upstairs, in what the woman described as a drum storage room, Hagerman noticed a pink ribbon she was wearing from a support group for women at the festival.

The woman told police that he became enraged at seeing the ribbon and ripped it off of her wrist. He slammed her head against the wall, calling her a whore, the complaint said.

Then he took “some type of pill,” she told police, and began brutally assaulting her, raping her vaginally, anally and orally, biting and beating her until she blacked out.

During the attack, the woman said he threatened her, saying, “I know where you live. … I will f—ing kill you and destroy your life if you say anything.”

When she regained consciousness, she said her underwear and the pink ribbon were gone.

She was so traumatized by the alleged assault that when she went to Park Nicollet urgent care two days later for wrist pain, she lied to the medical staff, saying she had hit her hand on a door frame while carrying a box.

She eventually told a friend, who helped her report the incident to the Scott County sheriff’s office on Oct. 30. Even then she was reluctant to identify her attacker because he had threatened her and she feared for her life, the complaint said.

A friend told police that during the final weekend of the festival, she noticed the woman seemed nervous and withdrawn.

After identifying her attacker as Hagerman, she filed a restraining order against him Nov. 29, according to court documents.

Police executed a search warrant for the Renaissance Festival grounds Nov. 29 and swabbed a stain in the drum room for potential DNA analysis, but no semen was detected.

Another witness told police he saw Hagerman enter the second floor entrance of Bad Manor with another person he could not see. A short time later he heard what sounded like banging coming from inside the drum room. When he went to the drum room door, he noticed it was locked. He knocked and asked if everything was OK. He heard Hagerman say, “I got this.” He told police he thought nothing of it and left.

Hagerman has been a fixture at the Ren Fest since he first put on a fur vest and stage makeup, transforming himself into the acerbic Rat Catcher in 1974. He worked his way up to the entertainment director, also developing a career as a speaker, trainer and author. Related Articles Suspect sends Rochester police suicidal messages, flees, dies causing head-on collision

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In 2016, he told the Star Tribune that his “childhood had been marred by the divorce of his parents, his struggles with attention deficit disorder and sexual abuse at a summer camp.”

He is being represented by Piper Kenney Wold who, in her motion for setting bail, described Hagerman as having “no criminal history, stable employment and strong ties in the Twin Cities.”

Attorneys Andrew Muller and John Klassen are representing the victim. Neither could be reached for comment Friday night.