LEESBURG, Va. (AP) — A Connecticut man has pleaded guilty to rape and abduction in a 2001 case in northern Virginia.

Aaron Thomas, of New Haven, Conn., entered the guilty pleas on Thursday in Loudoun County Circuit Court.

Thomas was arrested in Connecticut in March 2011 after a multi-state law enforcement effort to catch a man believed responsible for rapes and other attacks on 17 women since 1997 in Maryland, Virginia, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

The cases were linked by DNA and other evidence.

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