Rape conviction overturned

PALMER — Citing a violation of his constitutional rights at trial, a state appellate court has overturned the criminal conviction of a man accused twice of rape in the Valley, twice in Anchorage and once in Glennallen.

The case in question surrounds that Glennallen accusation. According to a ruling released Friday and penned by state Appeals Court Judge Joel Bolger, it began in the summer of 2007 during a 4,000-mile bicycle tour from Houston, Texas, to Anchorage.

Some of the racers stopped in Glennallen for food and continued riding. At Mile 180 of the Glenn Highway, one of the cyclists noticed Micah Beshaw running toward the road trying to get her attention.

“When she turned around, he told her that his vehicle was stuck and that he needed help pushing it out,” Bolger wrote. The cyclist was skeptical and wanted to wait for her companions. “Beshaw suddenly grabbed (her) arm and began to drag her toward the tree line.”

In trying to flee the scene, Beshaw wound up hitting one of the cyclists with a pickup truck.

By the time the case made it to trial, prosecutors had learned quite a bit about Beshaw’s past.

In September 2001, he was charged with raping multiple times a woman who he spotted walking home along the Glenn Highway just north of Palmer. He wiped the woman clean in an attempt to hide evidence.

That same month at the McDonald’s in Palmer, Beshaw allegedly posed as a woman’s co-worker to lure her into his truck and rape her. The woman identified Beshaw as her attacker.

Beshaw was charged with both Valley rapes, but entered a no contest plea to just the charge resulting from what he did on the Glenn Highway. He was sentenced to eight years in prison.

At the time of his Palmer case, Anchorage police flagged him as a suspect in two rapes in that city.

In February 2001, a woman said she was waiting for friends at Anchorage’s Fifth Avenue Mall when Beshaw approached her pretending to be a security guard. He raped her in an empty room, then drove her away, held her captive three days and raped her multiple times.

In October 2000, a woman alleged Beshaw posed as a security officer, accused her of selling drugs, then raped her in an elevator room, wiped her down and left her handcuffed to a pole.

Frontiersman reports from the time say the Anchorage allegations came up as Beshaw’s case made its way through the court system, but that criminal charges “never materialized.”

Beshaw, having apparently behaved in prison well enough for early release, was on probation for that 2001 rape conviction when he was accused of trying to rape the bicyclist.

Bolger wrote that the evidence of those four prior rapes was admitted in Beshaw’s trial. Bolger ruled the admission of that evidence to be within the bounds of rules of criminal trials, but the way it was admitted, he ruled was out of bounds.

Bolger writes that prosecutors admitted into evidence a sworn statement from the investigating trooper — Leonard Wallner, now a sergeant stationed with the Alaska State Troopers in Anchorage — and documents showing he was convicted.

But Beshaw had a right to confront his accuser in court, so there should have been some kind of witness called for him to question.

Bolger’s ruling thus requires that either Beshaw be let off the hook for that 2007 rape conviction or prosecutors try him again.

A separate part of the ruling throws a kidnapping conviction — saying there was no evidence showing Beshaw used the force necessary to bring a kidnapping charge. Prosecutors will not be able to bring the kidnapping charge if they choose to re-try Beshaw.

Yet a third part of the ruling upholds one of Beshaw’s convictions, saying that after he hit that cyclist with his pickup he was rightly charged and convicted for assault.

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