A 23-year-old Fremont County man is accused of raping his girlfriend’s friend so she would be the “donor” of a child he can’t have, federal court documents say.
A federal prosecutor charged Nathaniel Redfish on Monday in the U.S. District Court for Wyoming with one count of sexual abuse in Indian country and another of aggravated sexual abuse. Each carries a maximum penalty of life in prison and up to $250,000 in fines.
The Wind River Police Department, which is an outpost of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs based on the Wind River Indian Reservation, notified FBI Special Agent Alesha McFadden on Aug. 14 of a sexual assault report out of Ethete, Wyoming, according to an affidavit McFadden wrote.
A woman told police she’d been hanging out with her friend the night before, and with the friend’s boyfriend, who was Redfish.
She “blacked out” from drinking that night, but was fully clothed when she went to bed, the woman told police.
When she woke the morning of Aug. 14, she discovered Redfish was on top of her and having sex with her, the affidavit alleges. The woman tried to push Redfish off, but he got aggressive and wouldn’t stop, the document adds.
“While Redfish was assaulting her, Redfish was wearing (her) shirt that (she) had on the day prior,” the affidavit says. “Redfish said to (her), ‘I put on this shirt so you’d feel better about this.’”
The document claims he also said, “You’ll be the donor; give us the kid we can’t have.”
McFadden interviewed Redfish’s girlfriend as well, and she confirmed that she saw the pair “under the covers” together, and that the alleged victim had told her it wasn’t consensual.
The alleged victim went to the hospital for a sexual assault examination. The results showed injury to her genital area, the document says.
Investigators sent those results to the Wyoming State Crime Laboratory and collected Redfish’s DNA.
On Dec. 12, McFadden received results from the lab, revealing a match with a “statistical weight of moderate support” between Redfish’s DNA and the DNA from the rape exam, the document alleges.
Because Redfish is Native American and the alleged crime happened on the reservation, he is charged federally. Had he been charged with first-degree sexual assault under Wyoming law instead, he would have faced a penalty of between five and 50 years in prison, plus $10,000 in fines
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
