After testimony, former Idaho Rep. Aaron von Ehlinger rape case sent to District Court
Editor’s note: This story contains graphic descriptions of an alleged sexual assault.
The sexual assault case against former Idaho Republican Rep. Aaron von Ehlinger was forwarded to 4th District Court on Friday after a preliminary hearing in Ada County Magistrate Court.
Von Ehlinger faces two felony counts — rape and sexual penetration with a foreign object — in connection with allegations made this year by a former Idaho Legislature intern regarding a March incident. The charges were filed on Sept. 9, at which time the defendant was in South America on vacation and exploring a business venture, according to his attorney.
Upon hearing of the warrant for his arrest, Von Ehlinger, 39, of Juliaetta, intended to return to Ada County to turn himself in to contest the charges, his attorney said. But due to a “hiccup” in his travels, he missed a flight to Houston on Sept. 24 and flew to Atlanta the following day instead, where he was arrested by police at the airport.
He spent nearly two weeks at a jail in Clayton County before being escorted by Ada County Sheriff’s Office deputies back to Idaho.
He first appeared in court in Boise on Oct. 14.
Von Ehlinger resigned from the Idaho House of Representatives in April after an ethics committee unanimously recommended that he be expelled from his seat. He was accused of rape by a then-19-year-old intern, who testified at the ethics hearing, but Ethics and House Policy Committee members also heard testimony from others at the Statehouse while investigating von Ehlinger for “conduct unbecoming.”
Since the allegations surfaced, von Ehlinger has maintained that he had consensual sexual contact with the accuser at his apartment, and has denied all wrongdoing.
On Friday, the Ada County Prosecutor’s Office called two witnesses to the stand who were involved in examining the woman or investigating her claims.
Anne Marie Wardle, a nurse at Saint Alphonsus and a sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE), described the exam she conducted with the accuser on March 11, which occurred at the Faces of Hope Victim Center in Boise. The center provides services to people reporting alleged sexual assaults and works with local law enforcement agencies.
Wardle testified that the accuser reported having gone out to dinner with von Ehlinger in Boise. At the dinner, she reported that the conversation took a “little weird turn” when von Ehlinger mentioned that other lawmakers had commented on the intern’s way of dressing, and how she was distracting them.
After dinner, thinking they were returning to the intern’s car, she reported instead accompanying him to his apartment to pick up a “handicap placard.” The nurse said the accuser described that von Ehlinger picked her up and carried her to his bedroom, where he groped her, penetrated her vagina with his hands, forced her to perform oral sex and ejaculated on her.
Wardle said the accuser noted that at one point, von Ehlinger “sat on her chest, pinned her arms underneath his knees, and also grabbed her head and pulled her head” toward his groin.
In a portion of Wardle’s medical report read in court by the prosecutor, the nurse wrote the accuser had told her: “I told him I didn’t want to, and I yanked my head back. I wasn’t participating. ... I told him he was hurting me.”
At the time of the medical exam, Wardle reported that the accuser said one of her arms was hurting where von Ehlinger had been kneeling on her, as was the back of her head, where she had a welt. The accuser told Wardle that von Ehlinger had pulled her hair, the nurse said, and at one point she had tried to jerk away, hitting her head on the bed’s headboard.
The nurse took swabs from the accuser, including a swab of the skin on her stomach. Lead prosecutor Katelyn Margueritte Farley said the swab was found by a state laboratory to be von Ehlinger’s “DNA, or most likely his DNA.”
A second witness, Monte Iverson, a detective with the Boise Police Department, testified about the police investigation. Iverson said he met with von Ehlinger in April and took a DNA sample from him. Iverson later received a statement from von Ehlinger’s attorney at the time, Edward Dindinger, saying that von Ehlinger had engaged in oral sex with the accuser.
Von Ehlinger’s current attorney, Jon Cox, did not call anyone to testify.
“I guess I concede that the state has provided at least enough for this portion for the court to find that probable cause finding,” Cox told the court. “I anticipate that when this case goes to trial, it will be a lot more detailed and involved than for the purposes of today.”
Von Ehlinger will be arraigned in District Court on Nov. 8 before Judge Michael Reardon.
This story was originally published October 29, 2021 at 6:10 PM.
