LEESBURG, Va. (AP) — A Connecticut man who police believe is responsible for a series of sexual assaults along the East Coast pleaded guilty Thursday to a 2001 rape and abduction in Virginia, marking the first conviction in the attacks spanning more than a decade.

Aaron Thomas of New Haven faces two potential life sentences after he entered the guilty pleas in Loudoun County Circuit Court to one count of rape and one of abduction with intent to defile.