Trial ordered in teen rape case
SANDPOINT — A 17-year-old from Priest River was ordered Wednesday to stand trial for forcible rape.
Ryan Nathanial Greene is scheduled to be arraigned in 1st District Court on Nov. 7. He is free on $20,000 bail while the case is pending.
Though not yet at the age of majority, Greene is being prosecuted as an adult.
Greene is accused of kidnapping and raping the 14-year-old girl at his home in June 2015. The charges, however, did not emerge until last month, when the alleged victim voluntarily admitted herself into Kootenai Behavioral Health Center in Coeur d’Alene because of suicidal thoughts.
Priest River Police Officer Chris Davis testified that the alleged victim disclosed the sexual assault to hospital staff, who alerted authorities.
Davis confronted Greene, then 16, with the allegations last month.
“He at first denied that they had sex,” Davis testified during Wednesday’s preliminary hearing, adding that Greene subsequently admitted having sex with the teen and said it was consensual.
The alleged victim, now 15, gave a starkly different account when she was called to testify.
She testified that Greene wanted to have sex with her, but she refused. She told the court that he got on top of her and removed her clothes.
“He had me down, held down,” the teen testified.
The teen further testified that she placed her hand on his chest and tried to push him off of her. She told the court that she said the word “no” 10 times during the incident.
However, on cross examination she admitted to continuing to associate with Greene after the alleged assault, during which she did not scream or yell.
Judge Debra Heise spared Chief Deputy Susie Jensen’s need to argue against the kidnapping charge, finding that there was insufficient evidence to sustain the offense.
On the rape charge, Bonner County Deputy Prosecutor Nicholas Lepire counted several instances where the teen put up resistance, either by repeatedly telling him no, grabbing her hand when she went to leave or when she pressed her hand into his chest.
Heise ultimately bound Greene over to district court to stand trial.
“She testified that she said ‘no’ 10 times. She only had to say it once,” Heise said.