AUBURN – A Sabattus man pleaded guilty Thursday to raping a Bates College student last June.

Christian Averill, 21, admitted the crime before Androscoggin County Superior Court Justice Thomas Delahanty II, the Lewiston Sun Journal reported. The victim cried quietly in the back of the courtroom.

Averill previously had denied he was the man who followed a Bates freshman into a campus bathroom, held a weapon to her neck and raped her. He said he had never been on the Bates campus.

The rape charge carries a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison. Sentencing is expected in late October or early November after Averill undergoes a psychological examination.

Assistant District Attorney Deborah Potter Cashman said she wasn’t surprised at Averill’s guilty plea, given the DNA evidence the state has against him.

After the student reported the rape to a campus security guard, she was taken to Central Maine Medical Center, where DNA samples were taken from her clothes and body.

A Maine State Crime Lab technician was then able to match samples taken from the victim with a DNA profile that had been in the database since 1999.

The profile belonged to Averill, whose DNA samples were taken three years ago when he was convicted as a juvenile in another sexual assault. Averill has a second charge pending against him for allegedly raping a 24-year-old woman in 2001. Police questioned Averill about the incident after the woman reported he had raped her.

But state prosecutors said they didn’t have enough reason to charge him until he was identified as the lead suspect in the assault at Bates.

The victim in the earlier case claimed that Averill approached her as she was walking along Canal Street in Lewiston at about 11 p.m. June 15, 2001. She said he put her in a headlock, then raped her in the back of his pickup truck. Averill claimed the sex was consensual.