Second trial begins on man’s fifth alleged rape

PALMER — There are a few things different this time — the second time — Micah Beshaw is on trial for rape charges.

This time a verdict will come from Superior Court Judge Eric Smith rather than from a jury. A lot of the evidence is coming in the form of recordings from his last trial. And this time around, if anyone wants to put in evidence from now-Sgt. Leonard Wallner with the Alaska State Troopers they’ll need to put him on the stand rather than admit statements he’s made.

That last point is why Beshaw is facing trial again. He was convicted of attempted rape in 2007 for dragging a bicyclist on a trek from Texas to Anchorage toward the tree line as she cycled through Glennallen on the Glenn Highway. The rape allegation was the fifth Beshaw has faced and the second for which he was convicted.

But his conviction was tossed out in May 2012 when the Alaska Court of Appeals declared that Wallner should have been put on the stand if his sworn statement was admitted into evidence.

On re-trial this week in front of Smith, prosecutor Melissa Howard played a recording of former prosecutor Rachel Gernat grilling Beshaw about that day along the Glenn Highway.

After he allegedly tried to drag the woman into the trees, Beshaw hit another cyclist with his pickup. He then drove down a side road before screaming back out to the highway in his pickup, a rug obscuring his back license plate. Troopers later found him at a nearby property where his father was helping build a cabin.

In the recording, Beshaw appears to be denying that he dragged anyone toward the tree line. At first, in fact, he denies ever touching anyone. But then Gernat asks him if he’s sure.

“Is your testimony that you never touched the female bicyclist with your hands?” she asks.

“I don’t know if I touched her or not. I probably did,” he admits, saying he probably touched her when he offered her help.

Earlier in the tape, he says she didn’t want help, that she was mad. Beshaw says that he got mad back.

“Your concern for her changed and you yelled out, ‘you stupid effing c’?” Gernat asked.

“Yes,” Beshaw replied.

If Beshaw did drag that cyclist toward the trees intending to rape her, it would not have been the first time he was intent on rape.

In September 2001, he was charged with raping a woman multiple times who he spotted walking home along the Glenn Highway just north of Palmer.

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

He was charged with both rapes and pleaded guilty to one in order to avoid prosecution for the other.

In February 2001, a woman said she was waiting for friends at Anchorage’s Fifth Avenue Mall when Beshaw, posing as a security guard, got her into an empty room, raped her, then took her away, raping her multiple times over three days.

In October 2000, a woman said Beshaw posed as a security officer, accused her of selling drugs, then raped her in an elevator room.

Frontiersman reports from the time say charges in those Anchorage cases “never materialized.”

Whatever the case, Beshaw was clearly not a fan of troopers when Trooper Nathan Duce showed up to talk to him. He was defensive, unwilling to answer questions.

Beshaw says on the tape that he was defensive because he didn’t feel Duce was being forthcoming about why he was question him.

“You wanted to know what he knew before you said anything, didn’t you?” Gernat asked.

“I just wanted a straight answer,” Beshaw replied.

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