Editor’s Note: This story contains descriptions regarding allegations of sexual assault and allegations of rape. If you or someone you may know may have experienced an assault or rape and would like help, please call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673. Please use caution when reading. For more resources online, please visit the National Sexual Violence Resource Center at https://www.nsvrc.org/survivors/.
In federal court Tuesday, the government’s first witness took the stand, recounting an alleged sexual assault she said occurred in a hotel room during what she believed would be a spiritual blessing.
“My mind was thinking this is going somewhere I don’t want it to go,” she said Tuesday on the witness stand.
“I was scared,” the woman told the court. “I didn’t want to … I just wanted to be dusted off.”
The woman testified that Lyndreth Wall, on trial for multiple sexual assault felonies, led her to believe he would perform a traditional healing ceremony after her divorce. Instead, she said she became frightened and pushed him away when the encounter turned sexual.
She added later that it would be the first of two times he forced sex with her without her consent.
At times, she grew emotional. She told the court at one point she was “nervous” and at another, she was asked to speak slower for the official court record.
At 5 p.m., court adjourned, with the witness still on the stand. Her testimony will continue Wednesday morning under direct and cross examinations.
Tuesday’s first witness came after a full day of court proceedings in a Durango courtroom, including final jury selection, which took all of the morning, and opposing counsels’ opening statements. Each side built widely different versions of the case.
“Just as the indictment is not evidence, neither are opening statements,” U.S. District Judge Gordon Gallagher told the jury panel just after a lunch break.
“The purpose is to let you know what evidence is going to be presented in this case,” he said.
Prosecutors allege Wall, a former Ute Mountain Ute tribal leader, used his reputation as a medicine man to lead women into sexual acts under the guise of religious healing ceremonies. During his opening remarks, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Graves told jurors they will hear six different accounts — including one from a female who was 13 at the time — about assaults that happened on or near the Ute Mountain Ute reservation in Towaoc, 10 miles south of Cortez.
Graves said the evidence will show Wall used his visibility and authority within a small community to exploit women who initially came to him for help. He alleged Wall told victims they needed to “exchange energy” or be “doctored” and used those pretenses to exploit sexual touching, his gratification and assaults.
As their case unfolds over the coming days, the prosecution plans to bring forward experts to explain and contextualize how victims of trauma and sexual crimes behave in the aftermath.
Wall’s defense attorney Laura Hayes Suelau, from the federal public defender’s office, told jurors Wall is innocent. She said the prosecution’s case hinges on what witnesses will say in court rather than physical or forensic evidence.
“The government’s case rests entirely on uncorroborated statements,” she said.“Science, such as a rape kit or DNA, cannot lie. You will not see any text messages, phone records or GPS data.”
She said the case stems from conflict in personal relationships and with politics boiling over in a tight-knit community. But ultimately, she told jurors, all of this does not show criminal conduct. She repeatedly pointed to a long gap in the FBI’s timeline, saying that alleged assaults being from 2017 indicate a lack of investigative action.
“What you will learn is that the government did not make efforts to investigate this case,” she told jurors.
Suelau said Wall’s relationship with two of the women were emotional and romantic, stating that those were “messy” affairs but “not rape.”
Suelau argued in opening statements that while people may morally disagree with infidelity, “affairs are not crimes.” She reiterated that according to the law, the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt is on prosecutors to prove each and every one of the 20 counts the government alleges.
“The burden in this case is the highest in our justice system,” she said. “You cannot convict a man on words alone. We ask you to focus on facts, not feelings.”
During a lunch recess, Suelau argued defense objections over the prosecution’s plan to call the woman as their first witness.
Her testimony — involving allegations for which Wall is not charged with — was admitted under Federal Rule 413, which allows jurors to consider certain testimony of prior sexual-assault allegations for relevance.
Suelau argued that woman’s story in the hotel room would unfairly bias the jury, distract them from relevant charges in the case and even risk convicting Wall on a “crime he didn't commit.”
After hearing both sides, Gallagher denied the defense’s request. He said the 413 ruling remained and the government could decide its witness order. He said there can be “danger” with Rule 413 evidence but also clarified he would make sure testimony stayed within the boundaries of his prior order.
