AUBURN – A serial rapist who moved to Durham after serving time in Massachusetts is going back to prison for three years for assaulting a man with a steel club and for falsely reporting a stolen motorcycle so he could collect insurance money.

Ronald Leno, 56, pleaded guilty Monday to aggravated assault and insurance deception.

Before Justice Ellen Gorman announced his three-year prison sentence, Leno apologized to his victim, the people of Durham and to his own family.

“I was under a great deal of pressure at that time. Still, my behavior was inexcusable,” he said, referring to the afternoon of June 12 when he attacked Paul Pugliese with a club after Pugliese warned him to stay away from his family.

Pugliese, also of Durham, sat in the back of the courtroom and chose not to say anything.

The assault occurred days after police warned the people in Durham that Leno was living in their town.

Described by police as a serial rapist who has attacked women and young girls since the 1970s, Leno had been living on Meadow Road for nearly two years, but police didn’t know about him until a woman from Brunswick filed a protection-from-harassment order against him.

After learning about his extensive record in Massachusetts and Hawaii, police advised residents, school officials and others of his presence in the community.

Three days after police made the announcement, Leno stopped to talk to Pugliese’s wife as she worked in her garden. Leno left without causing any problems, but after Pugliese found out that he had been there, Pugliese went to his house.

The two men got into a confrontation, then Leno pulled out an expandable steel club and hit Pugliese on the head, arm, leg and ear. Pugliese suffered only minor injuries. He was treated at the hospital and released.

“Mr. Pugliese did not swing at him or strike him,” Deputy District Attorney Craig Turner said in court Monday.

Leno was arrested shortly after the incident and he has been in jail ever since. While he was in jail, police investigated allegations that he lied about his 2002 Ducati motorcycle being stolen so he could collect money from his insurance company. He told his insurer that the bike was stolen from a parking lot in Portsmouth, N.H. Acting on a tip, police later found the motorcyle in a storage facility in Lewiston.

Justice Ellen Gorman sentenced Leno to two and a half years in prison for the insurance fraud, but that sentence will run concurrently with the three-year sentence for the aggravated assault.

Before leaving Androscoggin County Superior Court on Monday, Leno made a general statement to the people of Durham.

“At no time was anyone in jeopardy of an assault by me,” he said. “I had hoped to live out my quiet years in Durham. That doesn’t seem to be the case.”

He also apologized for causing his family so much shame and embarrassment.

“Their only crime is having me as a sibling,” he said.