BLOOMINGTON - A 17-year-old Normal man was charged Monday in connection with two attacks near the Illinois State University campus earlier this month.

Joseph Primm

Joseph Primm of the 700 block of West Orlando Avenue was arrested after a police chase Saturday evening, police said. He was charged with 10 counts, including aggravated criminal sexual assault, home invasion, burglary and armed robbery.

The charges stem from a Feb. 12 incident in which a female ISU student was raped in her off-campus apartment on West Hovey Avenue and a Feb. 19 incident in which another female was attacked and robbed in her apartment at the university-owned Cardinal Court on Gregory Street, authorities said.

Primm was arrested shortly after 7 p.m. Saturday after Normal police responded to a call of a suspicious person outside an apartment building on West Hovey Avenue, police said. Officers saw Primm near the scene, but he ran before they could talk to him, police said.

"They chased him for several blocks," said Normal Police Chief Kent Crutcher. "He was acting suspiciously around the parking lot behind an apartment building in the same complex" where the Feb. 12 incident occurred.

Primm was arrested several blocks away Kinsley Street and Hovey Avenue after a chase that took him and officers through several yards, police said.

ISU Police Chief Ron Swan said the arrest was made because somebody "acted as eyes and ears in the community."

In a hearing Monday before Judge Paul Lawrence, prosecutors said police determined on Saturday that Primm fit the descriptions of the suspects in the Feb. 12 and Feb. 19 incidents. He was picked from a lineup by the victims in the previous attacks, police said.

Police also said the teen admitted to both attacks.

In the Feb. 12 incident, the woman, an ISU student, told police she was sleeping in her room. She awoke to find a man raising a bottle over her head, and she attempted to escape, authorities said.

The attacker dragged her back upstairs to her room, threatened to hit her with a candle and then sexually assaulted her, authorities said.

Later the attacker fled, and the victim ran to a neighbor's apartment to call police, authorities said.

On the morning of Feb. 19, another ISU student reported a man broke into her campus-owned Cardinal Court apartment. She told police she spotted the man in a room, and he then attacked her.

He hit her with a figurine she had in her apartment and bit her on her right cheek, authorities said. He stole her cell phone and then fled, authorities said.

After each attack, ISU officials issued campus safety alerts.

Primm has a prior aggravated battery conviction from Kankakee County. Unit 5 officials said he is not enrolled at either Normal high school.

He was jailed in lieu of posting $100,000. His next court date is March 13.