A 77-year-old Pinedale man has pleaded not guilty to three charges of molesting little girls more than two decades ago in Sublette County.
Robert Wayne McCutchan faces up to 45 years in prison and $21,000 in fines if convicted on all three felony counts, including second-degree and third-degree child sexual abuse, and taking immoral liberties.
The evidentiary affidavit accuses McCutchan of committing sex acts against a kindergartener, and against one of his Sunday school students at a local church.
He pleaded not guilty July 31, according to a recent filing in Sublette County District Court. His jury trial is set for Jan. 16, 2024.
Sit Here
The investigation started Feb. 5, 2022, when a woman who was about 29 years old told Sublette County Sheriff’s Detective Ian Allen that McCutchan had repeatedly molested her when she was a child, according to an evidentiary affidavit filed in the case.
Allen conducted a recorded interview with the woman one month later when she decided to make her report official.
She recalled incidents dating back to her kindergarten days in 1998 and 1999.
She said McCutchan would have her sit on his lap, and he’d rub her vaginal area under her underwear. He would do it in front of others as the pair sat under cover of a blanket.
“It was almost a daily occurrence” while McCutchan had access to her, the affidavit relates.
He told her not to tell anyone because he’d go to jail, the woman remembered.
He also would masturbate in front of her and would have her “masturbate him,” the affidavit claims, adding that he’d perform oral sex on her.
Sometimes he framed his actions like a game, she said.
The woman told the detective that she suppressed these memories until 2019, when McCutchan commented on a photograph of her, calling it “really sexy.”
“That text message triggered her memory of all the past events,” says the affidavit.
‘I’m Just (a) Sick Man’
Sublette County Sheriff’s Detective Travis Lanning gave the woman a recording device and sent her to meet with her alleged molester in Pinedale.
During that meeting, the woman told McCutchan she needed to understand why he did those things.
“I don’t know what to say hun, I’m just (a) sick man,” McCutchan replied, according to the affidavit. “I wished it … wouldn’t (have) happened, sorry I did, I ain’t gonna help ya.”
The woman asked if McCutchan had abused others, and he said no, the document relates.
Except …
Lanning dug into a criminal case from 1998, in which a different girl said McCutchan had touched her “privates” and exposed his “thing.”
The Pinedale Circuit Court Judge dismissed that case May 24, 2000, because there was not probable cause to believe McCutchan had abused that girl, says the affidavit.
Lanning tracked down the girl, who is now a woman about 37 years old. He interviewed her May 15, 2023.
The woman said it started when she was 8 years old in 1994, but she didn’t report until 1998 when she was 12.
McCutchan was a Sunday school teacher in Pinedale, she said. During Sunday school, he’d have different girls sit on his lap.
McCutchan also liked to drive by the girl’s house and offer to take her to the park. He took her 50 times, then told her to accompany him “to pee.” They’d go to the same spot in the trees behind the public restroom each time, the affidavit alleges, adding that he would ask her to perform oral sex or other sex acts on him.
Then, the woman said, he’d ask her not to tell anyone.
The Arrest
Lanning went to McCutchan’s Pinedale home June 13 and delivered the man’s Miranda rights.
McCutchan “admitted to having touched (the first girl’s) vagina and performing oral sex on her,” says the affidavit. He estimated she was younger than 10 years old at that time.
Though all McCutchan’s alleged crimes happened in Sublette County, Johnson County Attorney Tucker Ruby is prosecuting the case as a special prosecutor.
