BATON ROUGE - A man with a decade of domestic violence arrests was put behind bars again Tuesday after allegedly kidnapping a woman and raping her. 

Robert Cole is accused of holding the woman captive in his home for days, beating, choking and raping her. He left for a court appearance in an unrelated domestic abuse case on July 9 and she called for help. 

The Baton Rouge Police Department said the victim was taken by Cole when she left work on July 3. She had left her situation and was staying at the Iris Domestic Violence Center. She told police that when she did not answer Cole's questions about where she had been, he physically attacked her and took her to his home.  

Police said the following day, the victim told Cole that she was staying at the Iris Center. He took her there to get her things and leave. Documents said Cole damaged the gate of the center before taking off with the victim. 

According to BRPD, detectives learned that a female victim was kidnapped from a local domestic violence center. During the course of the investigation, detectives had very little to no leads on the name or location of the suspect and no whereabouts of the victim.

The arrest report says over the next five days, the woman was forced to stay in Cole's home where he beat her, choked her to the point of losing consciousness and raped her. She told police she was able to call for help on July 9 when Cole left for a court appearance and she found a cell phone. Officers noted that when they arrived, the woman's right eye was swollen shut, she had visible wounds on the sides of her neck and swelling on her head

Parish records show that Cole was in court for a probationary hearing. In March, he pleaded guilty to one count of domestic abuse aggravated assault and was sentenced to five years in prison, which were suspended by Judge Louise Hines. Instead, he was placed on probation for two years. 

The plea stemmed from a 2023 arrest where Cole allegedly punched a woman and her child while holding a knife. After he was in police custody, he threatened the officer — saying he was going to hunt them down and kill them. He was arrested for two counts of domestic abuse aggravated assault, threatening a public official and resisting an officer. 

Before that arrest, he was taken into custody in 2021 after punching the same woman and setting a fire in front of her home. Documents say that Cole gave the woman a bloody nose, knocked out one of her teeth and broke the glasses she was wearing. Officers said Cole left before the fire department arrived. He was arrested and booked for domestic abuse battery with serious bodily injury. He pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of domestic abuse and was sentenced to seven days in the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison by Judge Tarvald Smith. 

Cole was arrested twice in 2014 — once for domestic abuse and five months later for incest. Parish records said Cole was arrested in January 2014 after beating a woman in front of children. He pleaded guilty to domestic abuse battery after sitting in jail for two months and was given credit for time served. He was put on one year of probation, which he broke when he was arrested in May 2014 for aggravated incest and sexual battery. Due to the probation violation, he was put back in parish prison for two months. 

Currently, Cole is in the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison for first-degree rape, simple kidnapping, domestic abuse battery with strangulation, false imprisonment and simple criminal damage to property.