Woman testifies in opening day of rape trial

WASILLA — The victim in a sex assault case testified Tuesday she felt close to her attacker until he kidnapped her and force her to provide oral sex.

Troopers charged Jason Freeland, 36, of Wasilla with first-degree sexual assault, kidnapping, and fourth-degree assault Jan. 31, 2013. A grand jury dismissed a single charge of second-degree sexual assault in February 2013.

The victim — the Frontiersman does not identify victims of sexual assault by name — said she contacted Freeland after a nail went into her foot. Freeland had been staying with her at the time after a $50-per-day methamphetamine habit and financial hard times forced the victim and her husband to relocate to a hotel. The victim asked Freeland to drive her to an Anchorage urgent care clinic so she could obtain a tetanus booster. Instead, Freeland drove them back to his Williwaw residence to grab some belongings, stopping to shoot some heroin, the victim testified.

The victim also testified she was clean the day of the assault.

After that, Freeland and the victim left for Anchorage. Freeland became increasingly paranoid because of the drugs, stopping twice to make sure the wheels on the car they were driving did not come off. The second time he returned to the car, he brought a pistol-grip shotgun from the trunk, and put it on the floor of the victim’s side of the car, she testified. The implication was that if anyone stopped them, she should start shooting.

The victim testified that he then grabbed her hair and forced her to provide oral sex.

After the assault and a brief visit to the clinic, they stopped at the Eagle River Fred Meyer to get gas, at which point the victim said she slowly and deliberately walked through a fuel kiosk and into the back of a nearby Spenard Builders Supply store, and asked store employees to call her husband.

Freeland was arrested in Memphis, Tennessee, and eventually extradited to Alaska.

During cross-examination Tuesday afternoon, defense attorney John Pharr used recordings of statements the victim gave to Anchorage Police and Alaska State Troopers to point out apparent inconsistencies in her various accounts of the day, including statements that she didn’t believe Freeland had any opportunity to use drugs during their ride together.

“You said ‘he was definitely on something,’ right? You remember telling (police) that?” Pharr said. “And then you were trying to figure out where he would have done drugs, because there was really no chance to do drugs, he was with you all day. Do you remember telling (police) that?”

Pharr then played a recording of the interview, during which the victim could be heard using words to that effect.

Near the end of his cross-examination, Pharr confronted the victim.

“You got high with him, didn’t you?” he said. “When he shot up heroin, you got high, too, right?”

“No, absolutely not,” the victim responded.

“Your drug of choice was meth, correct?” Pharr continued.

“That’s correct,” she said.

Pharr also focused on an unconventional living arrangement, during which Freeland actually lived with the victim while her husband was out of town.

“Let me put it this way, it looks weird on the surface, doesn’t it?” he said. “That you have a young single male staying at your house when your husband is out of town.”

The victim had testified her phone had died after a stop for lunch, requiring her to seek assistance from the Spenard Business staff. Phone records show a single four-second call was made to her phone in the roughly six-hour period between 11:30 a.m. and 5:15 p.m., though prosecutor Melissa Wininger-Howard pointed out during re-direct examination that the call would have been recorded whether the phone was charged or not.

Attorneys also struggled over whether testimony about Freeland’s past criminal record should be heard by the jury, saying it could be prejudicial.

Freeland pleaded no contest to a second-degree weapons misconduct charge, and three third-degree assault charges in November 2001, court records show. Freeland received a five-year sentence for his part in an October 2000 incident in which he shot several times at a house and then at a man pursuing him while a 17-year-old girl drove a car he was riding in. Prior to that, Freeland also had accumulated seven misdemeanor convictions in three years, according to Alaska Court records and Frontiersman articles written at the time of Freeland’s sentencing.

Contact Brian O’Connor at 352-2269 or brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com.