A Kentucky man pleaded guilty yesterday to kidnapping an 11-year-old girl from a North Wheeling, W.Va., street and taking her into Ohio, where he sexually assaulted her.

Joshua Michael Ridings, 29, of Owensboro, Ky., entered the pleas in U.S. District Court in Wheeling.

He was accused of snatching the girl Feb. 20, 2007, and driving her to Belmont County, Ohio, where he attacked her behind a church. He then drove her back to West Virginia.

Mr. Ridings was linked by DNA evidence to that attack and another in Leitchfield, Ky., on Aug. 23, 2006. Both cases involved a nearly naked assailant.

Chris Zumpetta-Parr, of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Wheeling, said the plea agreement, which must be approved by Judge Frederick P. Stamp Jr., requires Mr. Ridings to spend 40 years in prison without parole and mandates lifetime supervision by the U.S. Probation Office.

U.S. Attorney Sharon L. Potter said the agreement was reached after consulting with the family of the victim. Ms. Potter said the victim was making "excellent progress" in dealing with the assault, but that the plea arrangement avoided "the trauma of revisiting the incident during testimony at trial."

Mr. Bond also is considered a suspect in the attempted abduction of a woman from Martins Ferry, Ohio, and faces charges or is considered a suspect in other incidents involving a naked man in Indiana and Kentucky.

He was being held in one of those cases when he escaped from a jail in Indiana in February, but was arrested two days later in a trailer on the outskirts of Owensboro, about 30 minutes away.