Christopher McKinny

Authorities have charged a Powell man with first-degree sexual assault, alleging that he forcibly raped a woman in a downtown parking lot in June.

The case against 40-year-old Christopher S. McKinny was bound over to Park County District Court late last month. At a preliminary hearing on July 26, McKinny’s defense attorney questioned the woman’s account and suggested the encounter could have been consensual, but Park County Circuit Court Judge Joey Darrah called the prosecutors’ case “very strong.”

As of Wednesday, McKinny remained jailed in Cody, with bail set at $250,000.

The crime reportedly occurred in mid-June. According to the information gathered by police, the woman left a downtown bar sometime after 1:30 a.m., upset about an unrelated incident. While walking home, she realized another patron from the bar — later identified by police as McKinny — was “walking behind her, trying to console her,” Powell Police Investigator Chris Wallace said in court of the woman’s account.

“A conversation began and the next thing [the woman] remembered was being forcefully ‘bent over’ the hood of a van” in another business's parking lot, Wallace wrote in an affidavit supporting the allegations.

The woman reportedly said she “shut down” in fear as the man raped her. She then walked to the Powell Police Department and reported being attacked.

Wallace was called to the station around 2:45 a.m. and found the woman crying, hysterical and very upset. Personnel at Powell Valley Hospital later noted abrasions on her upper arms and stomach, and she reported pain.

The woman reported that she had effectively blacked out during the assault and was unable to recall some details, Wallace recounted. She also said she didn’t know who had attacked her.

As part of his investigation, Wallace interviewed those who had been at the bar that night/early morning. According to the accounts of the bartender and another patron, McKinny and another man followed her out of the bar after she’d become upset, but only the other man returned. That man told police that he last saw McKinny walking in the direction the woman had headed.

McKinny spoke with police on June 16 and reported that “he played pool [at the bar] and walked home like he usually does,” Wallace wrote. When he later began talking about his departure from the bar, McKinny invoked his right to an attorney, Wallace’s affidavit says.

Pursuant to a search warrant, McKinny provided a sample of his DNA, which was compared to a sample gathered from the woman’s body. The Wyoming State Crime Lab in Cheyenne determined that sperm mixture found on the woman was 23,600,000,000,000,000,000,000 times more likely to have come from her and McKinny than her and someone else, the charging affidavit says. A swab of the woman’s neck — where Wallace had observed an apparent hickey — turned up a DNA profile that similarly appeared to match McKinny, the affidavit says.

McKinny was arrested on July 12, the day after police received the test results.

At the July 26 preliminary hearing, Wallace summarized the results as saying that “the likelihood of [McKinny] not being a contributor [is] very small” and “the likelihood of [McKinny] committing the crime is very high.”

The DNA evidence “makes it almost impossible for Mr. [McKinny] to not be the perpetrator of this sexual assault,” Deputy Park County Prosecuting Attorney Laura Newton asserted at the hearing.

However, McKinny’s attorney, Sarah Miles, argued that parts of the alleged victim’s story “aren’t kind of quite adding up.”

Miles probed the state’s case, including by inquiring about the woman’s reported silence during the incident.

“... if she does not say or do anything, Mr. McKinny may have believed that this alleged incident — had it occurred — would have been consensual,” Miles offered during her cross examination of Wallace.

However, the investigator disagreed.

“Based on her statements, she would not have consensual sex with someone that she does not know,” Wallace countered.

Newton later added that, “there was absolutely no indication that that was consensual.”

Judge Darrah ultimately ruled there was “ample evidence” to demonstrate probable cause — a relatively low legal threshold — and advance McKinny’s case toward a trial in district court. At trial, prosecutors will have to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, which is a much higher standard.

Miles asked for McKinny’s bond to be lowered to $20,000, with conditions that included wearing a GPS ankle monitor and a caveat that the bond would rise to $220,000 in the event of a violation.

“Both myself and Mr. McKinny obviously understand that the allegations in this particular case are very serious in nature,” Miles said.

However, she noted that her client is presumed to be innocent and was hoping to get back to work.

A large part of her argument was that McKinny could lose his Veterans Affairs benefits if he remained in custody. McKinny testified that he is 100% disabled from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and a traumatic brain injury (TBI), which he suffered in combat and in training with the U.S. Marine Corps.

VA guidelines say benefits can be reduced if a veteran serves more than 60 days in jail or prison, but only if the person is convicted of a crime. A conviction for first-degree sexual assault carries a minimum sentence of five years in prison.

Newton argued for bond to remain at $250,000, citing in part the violent nature of the alleged crime and “a serious risk to community safety.”

Darrah sided with the prosecution.

“I've worked really hard to make sure that people don’t have to sit in jail unnecessarily and I really take these bond modification requests seriously,” the judge said, but he noted that he must consider many other factors.

“The state’s case is very strong, the DNA evidence is very strong,” Darrah said. “I would see a motivation from Mr. [McKinny] to abscond.”

Given the circumstances, he called the $250,000 figure “completely reasonable.”

McKinny is set to be arraigned on Aug. 24 in district court, where he will formally enter a plea to the charge.