Jared Griffin

It didn’t take jurors long to conclude that a Cody man had sexually abused a child. The 12 members of the jury spent only about an hour deliberating on Friday before they unanimously convicted 34-year-old Jared M. Griffin of second-degree sexual abuse of a minor.

According to testimony and evidence presented at the trial in Park County District Court, Griffin had sexual contact with the preteen last spring. She reported the encounter to a trusted adult roughly a month after it happened.

At the end of a lengthy April 21 interrogation by Cody police, Griffin admitted to inappropriate contact with the child and was arrested. He’s been held in the Park County Detention Center since his arrest and will remain there to await sentencing.

No plea deal offered

Trials are relatively rare, as most criminal cases are resolved via plea agreements between the prosecution and the defense.

In this case, however, Deputy Park County Prosecuting Attorney Larry Eichele refused to offer a deal. There has been running tension between Eichele and Park County District Court Judge Bill Simpson, with some of it tied to Simpson’s August decision to scrap an agreed upon nine- to 10-year prison sentence and release a man on supervised probation.

It was a few weeks after Simpson released that defendant from prison that Eichele announced he wouldn’t be offering a deal to Griffin.

“It’s very significant,” Eichele said of the sexual abuse allegations, “and quite frankly, with some of the recent rulings with the court, we have trouble entering into plea agreements at this point, your honor.”

At the September hearing, Griffin’s court-appointed defense attorney, Sam Krone, responded that “we’re inclined just to try the case” in the absence of a deal. That’s what happened on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at the Park County Courthouse, though only after some additional objections from Eichele to Simpson’s pretrial orders.

Sparring in court

Just a few days before the trial began, Krone asked for the case to be dismissed, charging that Eichele had failed to turn over a couple pieces of evidence as ordered by the court. However, Krone withdrew that accusation and apologized after Eichele provided documentation showing the evidence had been provided to someone else in the public defender’s office.

The proceedings remained adversarial as the trial got underway on Thursday, with Eichele lodging a couple of objections to Krone’s opening statement as crossing into argument. He also disputed Simpson’s directive to refer to the child as “the alleged victim” rather than “the victim” during the trial.

After a lengthy discussion about the legalities, Simpson told Eichele that he could “proceed as you see fit,” and the prosecutor went on to refer to the child as the victim, over Krone’s objection.

“I have never seen an attorney just in court say, ‘I’m not going to follow the judge’s order, and this is how we’re going to do it,’” Krone said, “And it’s just cavalier, your honor.”

Eichele then cut in, saying he’d acted properly and asking for Krone’s comments to be stricken from the record. He continued to argue his position, adding to the defense attorney and judge that, “I’ve done more trials than both of you combined.”

Eichele noted the prosecution can object when it believes the court and defense is doing something wrong, again referencing the ongoing dispute over Simpson’s August decision to release Cameron Boni from prison.

“The fact that I object a lot, in my opinion, means you’re doing a lot wrong,” Eichele said.

The judge responded he would make those decisions.

“I don’t know that this is particularly helpful. It frankly isn’t,” Simpson added.

All of the discussions were held outside the presence of the jury, which wound up spending a significant amount of time in chambers over the course of the trial. In addition to other objections, closing arguments were delayed by an hour or two on Friday after it was discovered that the county attorney’s office had mistakenly left out an element of the crime in charging documents; that required a last-minute amendment.

Trial testimony

The trial featured testimony from three witnesses: Cody Police Det. Scott Burlingame, the child and Griffin. Jurors also watched video recordings of the two interviews that police conducted with the child and Griffin in April.

Though the child said on the stand that she didn’t remember much of what happened, she had provided a detailed account to authorities in the spring. She indicated that Griffin had directed her to take her clothes off and rubbed her genital area against his.

Griffin repeatedly denied doing anything inappropriate when he was first brought in for questioning. However, Burlingame and another detective continued grilling the suspect, insisting that he was lying. Griffin continued to deny some aspects of the child’s account — for instance, insisting that clothes remained on — but eventually admitted things had become inappropriate. He mentioned that he’d been drinking that night.

By both accounts, the contact was brief, with Griffin telling police that he stopped, went into a nearby bathroom and threw up, “because I felt like this was inappropriate and it was wrong.”

Griffin also disclosed to the officers that he was abused when he was a boy and then wasn’t believed by the adults he told.

“That’s tough to deal with, man: You were just 10 years old and wanted to be believed,” Burlingame told Griffin during the April interview, adding that the victim in this case “wants to be believed, too.”

Burlingame mentioned that it’s “very common” for people who are sexually abused to abuse others.

“It doesn’t make it right,” Griffin responded.

At trial, Griffin went back to insisting that nothing illegal had happened between him and the child. Griffin indicated that he’d been intimidated by the police officers, who had aggressively pressed him on an uncomfortable subject.

“I ended up just saying what I thought the detectives wanted to hear so I could get out of that situation,” he said.

Griffin’s testimony ultimately didn’t sway the jury, which found him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt on Friday afternoon.

The conviction for second-degree sexual abuse of a minor is punishable by anywhere from probation to up to 20 years of prison time. Sentencing will likely be scheduled within the next couple of months.