LIVINGSTON — David Coutee, who pleaded guilty this week to a brutal East Baton Rouge Parish rape, will plead guilty in Livingston Parish in a similar crime on Monday, according to the 21st judicial district attorney’s office.
It will be his third conviction in a rape case.
Prosecutor Brett Sommer said Coutee’s plea Monday, Sept. 28 in 21st Judicial District Court will have him serve 15 years on third-degree rape and 10 years on aggravated battery.
Those sentences will be served at the same time as each other and at the same time as Coutee’s 15-year sentence in the Baton Rouge case.
Coutee was sentenced Monday, Sept. 21 to 15 years in prison without probation, parole or suspension of sentence on second-degree rape in that case. He will get credit for time he has served since his arrest and will be eligible for a sentence reduction for good behavior in prison. He also got an 8-year suspended sentence with three years of probation on aggravated battery.
When Coutee is released, he will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
In the Livingston Parish case, Coutee is accused of assaulting a woman he had known for nearly 20 years. They reconnected over social media in June 2024 and had consensual sex once. That was four days after the Baton Rouge rape.
The Livingston victim returned to Coutee’s house two days after their first encounter. She said Coutee choked her with his hands and with a belt. She was then trapped in the house with him for two days because she didn’t have a car to escape. She said he raped her twice.
She reported the crime two days after Coutee’s arrest in the Baton Rouge case. He was charged with two counts of second-degree rape and one count of aggravated battery in the Livingston case.
In the Baton Rouge attack, the victim told UWK that she was “lucky to be alive” after a 13-hour ordeal in which Coutee held her prisoner inside her home, raped her, choked her, forced her to perform oral sex, beat her with a hammer and a flashlight, dragged her around the house by her hair and locked her in the attic.
“He needs to be put away because if he gets out, he will do it again,” she said after his arrest.
Monday’s plea will be Coutee’s third conviction in a rape case.
In 2021, Coutee was arrested in Livingston Parish on second-degree rape and battery of a dating partner with strangulation. He pleaded no contest in 2023 to reduced charges of second-degree battery and battery of a dating partner with strangulation in that case.
He was sentenced to eight years, with five of those years suspended. He was released less than six months later because of good behavior and time he served in jail before he was convicted. The 2024 rapes happened less than three months after his March 2024 release.
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