55 years for rape attempt

PALMER — If he gets out of prison, thrice-convicted rapist Micah Beshaw will be a very old man.

Thursday afternoon, Superior Court Judge Eric Smith sentenced Beshaw to 55 years in prison.

“Mr. Beshaw was under parole and probation supervision for sexual assault when he committed this offense and he hadn’t been out very long,” Smith said. “Probation doesn’t work. Rehabilitation is questionable at best.”

Beshaw was convicted April 17 of attempted sexual assault and assault for actions he committed in 2007. As a group of charity cyclists pedaled through Glennallen, Beshaw tricked one of them into getting off her bike, then pulled her toward the woods, threatening her with a screwdriver and punching her in the face.

He was convicted in 2008, but a higher court overturned that conviction, ruling prosecutors hadn’t strictly followed the rules on admitting evidence. The case was retried this year with a guilty verdict.

He was on parole in 2007 for incidents that happened in September 2001 in Palmer when he was charged with raping a woman multiple times after he picked her up as she walked home along the Glenn Highway, and another woman he picked up in the McDonald’s parking lot by posing as a co-worker.

At around that time he also was implicated, but never charged, in a pair of rapes in Anchorage. In February 2001 he was accused of raping a woman waiting for friends at Anchorage’s Fifth Avenue Mall, holding her captive for three days. In October 2000 he also allegedly attacked a woman in an elevator room in Anchorage.

At Thursday’s hearing, prosecutor Melissa Howard read emails she’d received from Glennallen residents who expressed concern that Beshaw might return to live in their community.

“I believe Micah Beshaw will hurt another girl if he’s released,” one read.

“He poses an extreme danger to society, particularly women,” read another.

“This is a horrendous crime perpetrated against an innocent person,” Howard said. “The state’s position is that he doesn’t have any prospect for rehabilitation. … He has raped before and he will rape again.”

Beshaw’s attorney, Jeff Bradley, argued that his client deserved at least some hope of living a life outside of prison walls. It was in society’s interest, he said, to give his client that hope. How can a person be expected to rehabilitate himself if there’s no chance of being released?

“Depriving him of any opportunity to improve himself by, for instance, restricting his access to parole, just further disincentivizes him,” Bradley said.

He argued for a 30-year sentence, which was on the lower end of the legally proscribed range allowed for Beshaw’s crimes.

“That is still a huge amount of time,” Bradley said.

In siding with Howard over Bradley, Smith said that the Glennallen incident was “every woman’s worst nightmare.”

He said that Beshaw’s original judge — the now-retired Palmer Superior Court Judge Beverly Cutler — went so far as to describe him as a serial rapist.

“I don’t know if I would go quite that far, but there is substantial evidence to indicate that is what we’re dealing with here,” Smith said.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.