One case is finally finished.– maybe.

On Wednesday, May 2, 2007, Mr. Preston Carbary was convicted by a jury of three felony counts of Rape by a Health Care Worker.  At the time, he was counseling the victim and used his position to force the victim to have sexual relations with him.    After some delay, on June 26, 2007, Judge Baker said the only just sentence was at the high end of the range and sentenced him to 194 months in the penitentiary. The state was represented by David Turplesmith and the defendant by Tim Trageser of Spokane.

After his conviction Mr. Carbary petitioned the Court of Appeals for a new trial.   He appealed on the basis that he claimed the judge had made a mistake by allowing the jury to hear some of the evidence.  One piece of that evidence was that Mr. Carbary had done a similar thing to another person prior to this victim.  Another piece was that that the Physician had been allowed to say to the jury that the victim had been raped.  The defense claimed that he should get a new trial without that evidence being heard by the jury. In the summer of 2008, the Court of Appeals ruled he had received a fair trial and denied his appeal.

He then petitioned the Supreme Court to review the Court of Appeals decision.  They declined to review it in 2009.

Then he filed a Personal Restraint Petition.  He argued that the rape charges were based upon perjured statements by the victim. He claimed that the victim’s boyfriend was always present at the victim’s home during the counseling sessions; therefore he could not have raped her. He also argued that there was insufficient evidence for the rapes and that he lost the case because of ineffective assistance of his attorney, Mr. Tregaser.

Senior Deputy Prosecuting Shadan Kapri responded for the State. The Court of Appeals found there was no credible evidence in the record that the victim’s boyfriend was living at the house during the timeframe the rapes occurred. The Court also found there was no evidence to corroborate his claim that he was never alone with the victim. The Court of Appeals rejected all of his claims just last week.

This should end the appeal process, but he has a lot of time on his hands and perhaps he will dream up some new claim to use to try to get out of prison.  I hope not, but if he does, we will respond.  Right now he is where he belongs. We will do our best to keep him there.