A U.S. Navy sailor arrested on a charge of raping a Japanese woman in Okinawa has admitted to the crime, investigative sources said Wednesday. They said he reversed an earlier denial.

Justin Castellanos, 24, who is based at the U.S. Marines’ Camp Schwab in northern Okinawa, was arrested on March 13 on suspicion of raping the woman in her 40s at a hotel in Naha early that morning.

Police allege Castellanos took the woman, a tourist from Fukuoka Prefecture, into his room after finding her asleep in a hotel corridor and raped her.

The suspect and the woman were both staying at the hotel but were not acquainted, the police said.

The alleged incident resulted in protests by thousands of people in Okinawa, which hosts the bulk of U.S. military facilities in Japan.