Missoula (30 page)

“I am,” Pabst replied, unchastened. “Thank you.”

      C
ecilia Washburn’s housemate Stephen Green was the next witness called by the prosecution. A twenty-two-year-old premed student, Green testified that he and Washburn were “best friends….We shared everything about each other’s life.” When questioned by prosecutor Joel Thompson whether Washburn seemed “preoccupied” with Jordan Johnson or had ever talked about wanting him for a boyfriend, Green said no.

Thompson asked Green how Washburn seemed on the afternoon before she was allegedly raped—did she make a big deal of the fact that Johnson was coming over to see her that night?

Washburn “seemed sort of nonchalant about it,” Green said. “She just mentioned that her friend was going to come over and watch a movie, and that was about it.”

At 11:41 p.m., as Stephen Green sat on the living room couch, absorbed in a video game called
Forza Motorsport
, he received the text from Cecilia Washburn that said, “I think I might have just gotten raped. he kept pushing and pushing and I said no but he wouldn’t listen…I just wanna cry…omg what do I do!”

“I didn’t really know what to do,” Green admitted. Shocked by Washburn’s text, he remained on the couch and replied two minutes later with a text of his own that said, “What are you doing? Get out of there.”

A few minutes after that, Washburn came out of her room by herself and headed toward the kitchen, whereupon Green jumped up to intercept her and ask what had happened. “She looked like she had been crying or was about to cry,” Green recalled. “Like her eyes
were watering up and she looked really distressed.” Washburn told Green that she didn’t want to talk about it, kept walking into the kitchen, and “got, like, a snack or something from the cupboard,” Green testified.

Prosecutor Joel Thompson asked Green if he knew Washburn was about to leave the house.

“Yeah,” Green answered. “I think she told me that she was going to give [Jordan Johnson] a ride home.” Soon thereafter, Johnson came out of Washburn’s bedroom, walked past Green without saying anything, and exited the house through the kitchen door. “I stayed on the couch and waited for her to come back,” Green said. “I was really anxious the entire time.”

When Cecilia Washburn returned, Green testified, “She came in through the back door into the kitchen, and I heard her, so I ran in there, and she leaned up against the refrigerator and was crying really heavily, so bad that she couldn’t really talk….[She was] gasping for air….I ran up to her and hugged her and asked her what happened….She told me that…he kept pushing and pushing and she tried to say no, but he wouldn’t listen.” Green said he “hugged her for a while, and she just cried on my shoulder.”…

“Were you able to get her calmed down?” Thompson asked.

“Yeah, a little bit,” Green answered. “And then we went and sat on the couch in the living room, and she was still pretty upset….She was telling me that she didn’t want anybody to find out. And that she didn’t, like, want to report it to the police or anything.” When Green disagreed and urged her to report that she’d been raped, Washburn repeated that “she didn’t want anybody to find out about what had happened,” Green testified.

In her opening statement, Kirsten Pabst had asserted that Cecilia Washburn falsely accused Jordan Johnson of raping her to gain attention and become a celebrity. Thompson asked Stephen Green, “Did it seem like she wanted to be a celebrity?”

“No,” Green replied.

“Did it appear as though she enjoyed her new identity as a victim?”

“No.”…

“But she liked the attention, didn’t she?”

“No.”…

“From your observations of her on a daily basis, have you been able to see the patterns in which she copes and deals with the stress?” Thompson asked.

“She distances herself from everybody,” Green testified. “She will just kind of disappear into her room or something like that, and not want to talk to anybody, not want to say anything. She just kind of internalizes it.”

CLAIRE FRANCOEUR
, the nurse-practitioner and forensic medical examiner at the First Step sexual-assault resource center who’d examined Allison Huguet and Kelsey Belnap, was called as a witness by the prosecution at the end of the trial’s first week. She showed the jury photographs and a video of Cecilia Washburn’s genitals while describing the forensic exam she performed the day after Washburn was allegedly raped. Prompted by questions from prosecutor Adam Duerk, Francoeur pointed out abrasions and a small laceration inside Washburn’s vagina, as well as minor bruises on her collarbone. She also testified that she found tenderness throughout the vaginal wall and tenderness on the side of Washburn’s head. All of which, she said, were “consistent with sexual trauma, though nonspecific.”

After the video of Washburn’s genitals finished playing and the public was readmitted to the courtroom, defense counsel David Paoli, bent on impugning Francoeur’s credibility, began an especially contentious cross-examination. “Nurse Francoeur…,” he began, “your job is not to determine, and you can’t determine, nonconsensual versus consensual [sex]; isn’t that right?”

“Correct,” she answered.

Paoli then lambasted Francoeur for failing to read some medical literature he’d asked her to review. “I gave you some of that literature on May 10,” he thundered, “and you hadn’t even reviewed it by December, when I took your statement; isn’t that right?”

“That’s correct,” she replied.

“The literature I gave to you on May 10,” Paoli continued, “have you read it to date?”

“I have not read the article in its entirety, no,” Francoeur answered.

“There were three articles. You haven’t read any of them, have you?” he demanded. When Francoeur said she didn’t recall, Paoli became even angrier. “What does it mean when you say you don’t recall?” he raged. “Because you’ve done that with me a lot!”

“Objection!” prosecutor Adam Duerk barked, but Paoli ignored him and continued berating Francoeur.

“Objection!” Duerk shouted again, protesting that Paoli was being argumentative.

“Sustained,” Judge Townsend agreed.

“You became friends with Cecilia Washburn, didn’t you?” Paoli spat.

“I would not describe her as a friend,” Nurse Francoeur replied.

“How would you describe her?”

“As a patient.”…

“You said that part of your responsibilities as a medical professional was to refer her to a lawyer?…You referred her to an Atlanta law firm, did you not?”

“I gave her a name,” Francoeur explained.

“And you made contact with that law firm on her behalf, didn’t you?”

“I did not.”

“You had made contact with that law firm to tell them that Ms. Washburn was going to be calling them?”

“It was not me who made that contact.”…

“And this was about the time that Ms. Washburn was going to go to the police department; isn’t that right?”

“I believe it was before then. I don’t recall the exact date.”…

“Let me remind you when she went to the police: March 16. And you know that because you went with her; isn’t that right?”

“That’s correct.”

Paoli professed that he was shocked that Francoeur, a nurse, would accompany a patient to the police station or refer a patient to a lawyer. In a voice edged with scorn, he inquired, “That’s part of your medical professionalism?”

Francoeur replied that such consultation was part of providing “patient-centered” care, in accordance with the standard protocols of her profession.

“Patient-centered and litigation-fueled? Is that part of what it is?”

“Objection!” shouted Duerk.

“Sustained,” Judge Townsend concurred.

Paoli nevertheless continued hectoring Francoeur about referring Washburn to a lawyer for several more minutes. “And it is part of your professional practice to refer [your patients] to lawyers in Atlanta,” he fulminated. “Is that right?”

“It’s part of my job to refer them to whatever resources they need,” she wearily replied, “including attorneys.”

Finally realizing that he had perhaps dwelled overly long on this point, Paoli stopped badgering Francoeur about the propriety of referring an alleged victim to a lawyer and started badgering her about the way she performed Cecilia Washburn’s forensic exam. Paoli even suggested that it was not Jordan Johnson who caused the injuries to Washburn’s genitalia but Francoeur, when she conducted the examination. As evidence of her ineptitude, he pointed out that the finger of one of the surgical gloves she wore had a minuscule rip. “The torn glove is really outside the standard of care, isn’t it?” he asked.

“It’s outside of the standard, yes,” Francoeur agreed.

Paoli brought up the laceration inside Washburn’s vagina that Francoeur had identified in the video. “This small laceration, it’s approximately a millimeter, isn’t it?” he asked.

“I’d have to look at the tape again,” she answered, “but that sounds about right: one to two millimeters.”…

“I mean, it’s tiny, correct?” Paoli continued.

“Yes.”…

When he inquired if the laceration could have been made prior to the alleged assault, she said yes. “Even up to a week before; isn’t that right?” he asked.

“It would be rare to see injuries up to a week before, but it could be.”

Paoli asked if the tenderness and abrasions Francoeur had found on the wall of Cecilia Washburn’s vagina and the red marks she’d identified on Washburn’s collarbone could have been caused by consensual sex. “It’s possible,” Francoeur conceded.

When David Paoli finally completed his cross-examination, prosecutor Adam Duerk was given an opportunity to interrogate Nurse
Francoeur again. “In terms of your care and treatment with Ms. Washburn, did you maintain your objectivity?” he asked.

“I did,” she replied.

“Did your examination of Ms. Washburn cause any of the injuries, either the genital or the nongenital injuries?”

“No.”

“Did the way that you conducted this First Step acute sexual trauma examination violate any guidelines that you’re aware of?”

“No.”…

“Do these guidelines, the 2004 national protocols, talk about your duty to provide information about civil attorneys to a victim?”

“They do.”

“Do these national guidelines tell you that you are supposed to help victims communicate with law enforcement officers?”

“They do.”…

“Was there anything in Cecilia Washburn’s history that indicated to you that these injuries were caused prior to February 4, 2012?” prosecutor Adam Duerk asked.

“No,” Nurse Francoeur replied.

“Objection, Your Honor!” defense counsel David Paoli protested.

Judge Townsend asked Paoli and Duerk to approach the bench for an off-the-record conference to discuss Paoli’s objection. As the lawyers were leaving the bench after huddling with Townsend, Paoli muttered something under his breath to Duerk—a threat or imprecation, apparently, because Duerk turned toward Paoli and angrily demanded, “Excuse me? What was that?”

Paoli said nothing, but he stood chest to chest with Duerk, glaring down at him. For a long beat, Paoli—who probably weighed at least a hundred pounds more than Duerk—looked like he was about to deliver a head butt to the bridge of Duerk’s nose. Townsend defused the standoff by pointedly declaring, “You may continue, Mr. Duerk,” after which Duerk resumed his redirect examination of Francoeur, and Paoli retreated to the defense counsel’s table.

“Did the torn glove affect the ultimate findings of your examination in this case?” Duerk asked.

“No,” Francoeur replied. Cecilia Washburn’s genital injuries, she assured the jury, were “consistent with sexual trauma.”

CONNIE BRUECKNER
, the Missoula police detective assigned to be the lead investigator for the Jordan Johnson case, was called by the prosecution to testify in support of Cecilia Washburn. Under direct examination by prosecutor Adam Duerk, Brueckner testified that Cecilia Washburn had cooperated fully with her investigation, including voluntarily turning over her cell phone and allowing the police to download all of the twenty-nine thousand text messages it contained, many of which defense counsel David Paoli used in court to try to smear Washburn’s reputation. To some degree Johnson also cooperated with Brueckner’s investigation, but, suspiciously, he deleted all the texts about Washburn he’d sent in the aftermath of the alleged rape, before Detective Brueckner had an opportunity to ask for them. And because Washburn didn’t go to the police until six weeks after the alleged rape, Johnson’s cell-phone carrier had deleted his texts from its system by the time Brueckner began her investigation.

Three months after the night in question, Brueckner and another detective, named Dean Chrestenson, interviewed Jordan Johnson at the police station in the presence of defense counsel Kirsten Pabst. As an adjunct to Detective Brueckner’s testimony during the trial, Duerk played a videotape of this interview. As they watched the video in the courtroom, the members of the jury heard Detective Chrestenson admonish Johnson, “There’s two people in that room together, and one of you is lying. Your behavior after the incident—that, to me, is the most alarming part.” What’s more, Chrestenson said, Johnson had plenty of reason to lie, because if he were convicted it would end his dream of playing professional football after college or becoming a football coach.

Upon hearing this, Johnson began to sob. “I don’t care about all that,” he told Chrestenson. “I just want to be a kid again. I don’t care about football.”

At one point in the video, Johnson told Detective Brueckner that he said almost nothing to Cecilia Washburn from the time they started making out on Washburn’s bed until she dropped him off at his house after the alleged rape, and she spoke to him only once: Washburn playfully uttered, “ ‘Oh, you’re bad,’ ” Johnson recalled,
“when I turned her over.” As soon as he uttered these words, however, Johnson seemed to regret admitting that he’d turned her over, and he quickly added, “Well, we changed positions.”

After the video ended, prosecutor Adam Duerk asked Detective Brueckner if she’d found this bit of testimony “significant in any way.”