Medicine man claims: ‘Rape never happened’

By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

GALLUP — When he got up to speak for leniency from District Court Judge Grant Foutz Monday, Navajo medicine man Herbert Yazzie got right to the point.

“My daughter-in-law accuse me of raping her,” he said. “It never happened.”

Yazzie was sentenced to 12 years in prison Monday after a second jury convicted him of criminal sexual penetration.

He showed no remorse because he contends today as he did when he was arrested that his daughter-in-law made up the whole accusation.

“I got blamed for something I didn’t do,” he said, adding that he loved his son — the victim’s husband — with all of his heart and “as God is my witness, nothing happened.”

Steve Seeger, Yazzie’s attorney, argued that this is a case where there is no evidence to indicate who is telling the truth.

There were no witnesses to the rape and by the time she reported it to authorities, any evidence was long gone so when it came to Yazzie’s trial, all the jurors had to go on was credibility — which story was more credible.

And one thing that probably was a factor was the lingering question — if the victim was lying, why would she put herself and her family through all of this. What was her motive?

Seeger’s theory, which he alluded to in his presentation before District Court Judge Grant Foutz Monday, was that the victim was having a number of affairs, some even with close relatives, and she viewed Yazzie as a threat, worrying that her husband would listen to him more than he would to her. So she came up with this accusation to get her husband’s father out of her husband’s life.

He pointed to a number of things on Monday that he said just didn’t seem like the actions of a woman who says her life has been ruined.

For example, during her testimony at the recent trial, the victim was very upset and distraught on the stand as she was telling the jurors about what she had gone through.

But during a break, he said he saw her talking to the prosecutors and asking them if they had any Ceremonial tickets because she wanted to go.

Then there is the question of May 17.

That’s the date that the victim repeatedly said was the date the rape occurred. Until the defense discovered that the rape could not have occurred on that date because she was in the hospital being treating for pregnancy complications.

So just before the trial started, the prosecution, he said, came out with a statement that the rape occurred sometime during a six-week period in April and May 2007.

He questioned whether any woman would actually not be able to remember the date she was raped.

He also brought up at Monday’s hearing what the victim was doing to get counseling for the trauma she had suffered at the hands of her father-in-law.

Deedee Gonzales, who works for the Sheriff’s Department, told Foutz that after the charges were filed, she repeatedly met with the victim and spent hours with her because she was worried that the victim wanted to kill herself.

Seeger asked her then if she knew of anyone since then that the victim has gone to in an effort to get counseling and Gonzales said she didn’t. Seeger told Foutz that he also asked the prosecution for any documents that would show where the victim went to see counseling for the trauma and for her anxiety. “Nothing was ever given to us,” he said.

All of this has him wondering just who is telling the truth in this case.

Foutz said during his sentencing that people wanted him to tell them which side was he leaning on as far as who was telling the truth but he explained that this was the jury’s job and not his and from their decision to find Yazzie guilty, it was obvious whose side they believed.

But with no evidence to support either side, Seeger argued that it was impossible to know and that the jury evidentially decided the case “on emotion” rather than evidence.