Sex molestation trial continues, state calls alleged victim to testify

The sexual assault case against Jed Damson, who is accused of molesting a 15-year-old girl with a developmental disability, continued Tuesday as attorneys for the prosecution called six witnesses to the stand, among them the alleged victim and her mother.

Damson, born in 1948, is accused of sexual assault. The sexual intercourse without consent charge was dropped the first day of the trial, Monday.

Court documents say charges were pressed after the girl told her mother in July 2014 that Damson had been giving her "boyfriend classes."

Further investigation by counselors and law enforcement resulted in accusations of molestation. Up until that point, Damson and the alleged victim had a close relationship and she referred to him as Grandpa Jed. Damson and the girl spent a lot of time in the Atrium Mall, where Damson owned a candy store with his wife and the girl’s mother worked.

The girl took the stand late in the afternoon. She was questioned by Montana Assistant Attorney General Joel Thompson from Helena, who was asked to assist Deputy Hill County Attorney Ryan Mickelson in this case because of his experience in sex cases.

The girl said she knew she was in the courtroom “about the sexual assault case.”

She told Thompson that, before July 2014, Damson was an adopted grandpa, that she’d call him every day to say hi before school and that he came to her birthday parties. All that was before the touching started, the girl said.

She didn’t remember when it started, but she said Damson would “touch my breasts and my private parts” with his hands “under my clothes.” She also said Damson touched her “bottom.” When Thompson asked what she meant — where you go number one or two? — she said both. She said Damson also humped her and gave her “tummy rubs,” which felt “gross.” She said these things happened at their “secret spot” in the Atrium Mall and in the back room of then-Damson’s candy store, Sweet Temptations.

Damson sold the store to new owners before the charges were filed against him.

The girl said she asked her mom on July 28 what “arouse” means, a word she said she heard from Damson.

On July 31, the girl said, she told Damson that she “told my mom,” and he told her they were not friends anymore. Thompson asked her how she felt about Damson now and she said she was scared of him.

The defense did not ask the girl any questions.

The victim’s mother, the first prosecution witness told Mickelson that her daughter doesn’t understand abstract thoughts and never plays “pretend.” And while her daughter has lots of adopted grandpas and hugs are routine, kisses “not so much.”

During his opening statement Monday, Damson’s attorney Jeremy Yellin said Damson’s kissing of the girl was normal for a grandpa-granddaughter relationship.

The last witness, Rick Neuwerth, someone who’s known the girl “since she was a toddler,” testified that the year before the investigation started he saw Damson “embrace” the girl and kiss her on the lips.

The first time the mother felt something may have happened, she said, was when her daughter asked her July 21: “Can you tell me what arouse means?”

“I just felt some inappropriate conversation had happened,” the mother said, adding that her daughter had no other way than Damson to know anything about that.

The mother said that from that point on, she tried to limit the contact between her daugher and Damson, and looked forward to the Damsons selling the candy store, which they were already trying to do, and moving away.

But 10 days later, July 31, 2014, her daughter had come back from the Damson’s candy store “devastated,” she said.

“She was shaking and crying,” the mother said.

Her daughter, once she had calmed down, told her that Damson tried to have boyfriend-girlfriend class and pointed at her crotch.

The mother said she became convinced that much more had been going on than inappropriate talk, but was also unsure of what to do at that time.

She said Damson came down about an hour later and asked to talk to her. Damson told her he was busy in the store and couldn’t talk when her daughter came by, that he was worried that she was upset now. Damson also said that he’d given the girl back rubs and didn’t want her mother to think anything inappropriate happened, the mother said.

“I found it concerning that this was the day he came down to have this conversation, after (my daughter) disclosed what she did,” the mother said.

The mother said she had “no clear thoughts on what to do” after the developments.

On cross examination, Yellin brought up how he’d learned, through his interviews with all the witnesses, that the girl attended a conference at the beginning of the month, about a couple of weeks before the allegations came out, where she learned about “good touch and bad touch.”

“Arousing, humping — that kind of stuff,” Yellin said is what the girl told him she also learned at the conference.

The mother said they had attended that conference. Contrary to what the mother said, her daughter did know those terms, Yellin said. And although the mother said her daughter had never showed interest in boys, Yellin said during his interview with the girl, she had told him that she once told Damson she had a boyfriend, even named him, before acknowledging that was not true. So that, too, was a concept the girl understood and that the mother had missed about her daughter, Yellin said.

Yellin said the developmental disability condition the girl has makes her susceptible to suggestion.

“She responds to other people’s cues,” he said.

Yellin asked the mother why, if she was so concerned at the time, she didn’t call the police immediately. Why did she wait for a friend to call, the next day? Yellin asked.

Other witnesses were the girl’s godmother and the person who notified authorities, Sheila Nuewerth; Detective Brian Cassidy of the Havre Police Department;, and Lindsey Reichelt, a mental health therapist with Bullhook Community Health Center and also the person who performed two interviews with the girl.

The prosecution planned to present more witnesses this morning.