A 39-year-old skilled rock climber was discovered responsible by a federal jury for the aggravated sexual assault of a lady in Yosemite Nationwide Park.
Charles Barret was convicted of repeatedly raping a lady in August 2016 whereas he labored and lived on the nationwide park, the U.S. legal professional’s workplace introduced in a information launch. A jury reached a unanimous choice Tuesday after a seven-day trial in Sacramento federal court docket, discovering Barret responsible of two counts of aggravated sexual abuse and one depend of abusive sexual contact.
He’s scheduled to be sentenced on Might 21 and faces a most penalty of life in jail and a $250,000 high-quality, based on the U.S. legal professional’s workplace.
In an e mail, Barret’s legal professional Timothy Patrick Hennessy relayed a message from his shopper that stated, “I’ve been wrongly convicted. I’ll proceed to combat to clear my title.”
Prosecutors stated Barret would journey throughout the nation to pursue mountaineering, visiting totally different areas primarily based on the season. Barret’s protection attorneys stated he was a sponsored climber and well-known within the rock-climbing group.
The federal government’s case described Barret as aggressive and violent towards his former companions and others.
On the evening of the assault, he invited his sufferer to observe a meteor bathe in a distant a part of the park, the place he strangled and raped her, based on court docket paperwork.
Out of concern of additional hurt, she didn’t attempt to flee and was repeatedly sexually assaulted over that weekend, based on prosecutors.
After releasing the girl, Barret later instructed her in a textual content message that he wished to see her once more. However she instructed him that he had raped her and he or she by no means wished to see him once more. Barret denied raping the girl and write in a later message, “Can we be mates? I miss you.”
She replied, “I discover it onerous to be mates with guys who rape me.”
He continued to message her in regards to the assault, based on prosecutors, however she didn’t report the incident till April 2020. Inside days of her going to police, she began to obtain mysterious textual content messages and telephone calls from an unknown quantity, as if Barret knew she had spoken to authorities, court docket paperwork present.
In a separate string of textual content messages, Barret wrote to a number of mates that he deliberate to kill the dual daughters of a ranger who had beforehand stopped him for driving below the affect “as a result of [the ranger] ruined [his] life,” based on court docket paperwork.
He additionally instructed his mates that he had a .44 magnum and a .45-caliber firearm. He then wrote to his mates that he would “die together with her,” but it surely was unclear whom he was referring to after which stated he was going to go to jail for the remainder of his life and he had nothing to dwell for, court docket data present. It wasn’t till years later that Barret admitted to investigators that he was afraid to face jail time if his sufferer instructed authorities in regards to the rape.
A couple of month after the assault, he retreated into the woods within the Tuolumne Meadows portion of Yosemite and was threatening to take his personal life when he was taken into custody, a federal agent testified. Barret instructed officers he had loaded firearms and refused to return out of the woods, however he was ultimately taken to a medical heart in Fresno and positioned on a psychiatric maintain for analysis, based on court docket data.
On the time, authorities weren’t conscious of the sexual assault. Barret was later launched.
Throughout their investigation, federal brokers realized that Barret stalked his assault sufferer and unfold false details about her at a restaurant the place she was looking for work in 2019. Barret additionally took to Instagram round that point and in contrast himself to Johnny Depp, claiming he would sue his victims for defamation of character, based on court docket data.
Barret was arrested in August 2022 in Mammoth Lakes. He was repeatedly labeled a flight danger and a hazard to his victims by the federal government’s attorneys.
Throughout his trial, jurors listened to testimony from three different ladies who stated that Barret sexually assaulted them in the same method, however attributable to jurisdictional challenges these incidents weren’t a part of the prosecution’s case in opposition to him within the Jap District of California.
“This defendant used his renown and bodily presence as a rock climber to lure and intimidate victims who had been a part of the rock-climbing group. His violent sexual assaults had been devastating to the victims, whom he later threatened within the lead-up to trial,” U.S. Atty. Phillip Talbert stated in a press release.
The Occasions doesn’t publish the names of sexual assault victims except they arrive forth publicly.
Throughout a jailhouse name with a pal in October 2022, Barret stated that one thing would occur to the victims and anybody else he believed harmed him.
His pal stated, “Yeah, effectively don’t say stuff like that, that’s gonna get you in bother instantly and extra so and make everybody consider that you’re able to the issues you’re accused of. So that you principally can’t suppose like that.”
Barret replied, “Properly, if I don’t get out of right here I obtained folks in right here that I made contact with as a result of they f— put me in right here with murderers.”
Throughout one other jail name, Barret and a pal talked about forging one of many sufferer’s signatures on a be aware that would undermine her claims in opposition to him, prosecutors stated.
