MINNEAPOLIS  — A 15-year-old Minnesota girl who thought she was helping a friend’s dad was instead kidnapped and held captive for 29 days during which she was repeatedly raped, tied up with zip ties and locked in a closet before escaping and swimming across a lake to safety, prosecutors said Thursday in announcing charges against three men.

Court documents detail instances in which the girl said she believed that the men were trying to kill her, including when she fought back as one of them tried to push her underwater in a bathtub, and another when a cord or rope was placed around her neck and she was forced to hang until she couldn’t breathe.

Weeks into her ordeal, police knocked on the door of the mobile home where she was being held to investigate a report of stolen property, but no one answered. After that, the men told the girl to get into a duffel bag, loaded her in the back of a truck, and moved her to an abandoned home.

The girl escaped from that home in rural, western Minnesota on Tuesday when the men left her alone for the first time in nearly a month as they went to get pizza. She knocked on nearby doors, then swam across part of a lake — losing her pants and shoes in the water — and flagged down a farmer for help.

The Associated Press generally does not name victims of sexual assault and is not naming the girl. She was reunited with her family Tuesday, and the family has asked for privacy.

Three men were charged Thursday with multiple counts. Thomas Barker, 32, of Carlos, Minnesota, and Steven Powers, 20, of Benson, were charged with kidnapping, criminal sexual conduct and false imprisonment. Joshua Holby, 31, of Carlos was charged with kidnapping and false imprisonment.