Tribal activist accused of sex assaults
Santa Fe police seek whereabouts of traveling businessman who works in Santa Fe, Seattle
Santa Fe police issued an arrest warrant Monday for a part-time resident they have been investigating for more than a month on suspicion of sex crimes.
Redwolf Pope, 41, is accused of sexually assaulting women who appear to be unresponsive, and recording the crimes, according to an affidavit seeking a warrant for his arrest.
Local police have been investigating these and other allegations since at least early June, when Pope’s roommates told officers they had found videos that appear to show him raping unconscious women. The roommates also told police they believe he planted hidden cameras in the bathroom and other rooms of an apartment they share with him in Santa Fe and one where they sometimes stay in Seattle.
A woman from the Seattle area told police in that city earlier this month that she believes Pope raped her in Santa Fe during a visit last year.
Lt. Michele Williams of the Santa Fe Police Department said the agency is working closely with the Seattle Police Department to investigate the case, as Pope is reported to travel frequently between the two cities and may have committed crimes in either or both. The investigation is ongoing, she said.
A Santa Fe County Magistrate Court judge on Monday signed off on an arrest warrant for Pope, who is facing charges of criminal sexual penetration, criminal sexual contact, aggravated battery and false imprisonment.
According to the arrest warrant affidavit, the Washington state woman told police he had given her some alcohol one
night as he was driving her from a party in Santa Fe. When she woke up the next day, she said, she was in a hotel room with Pope and couldn’t remember anything from the past evening.
The woman was concerned, she said, when Pope suggested something had happened between them. But she left Santa Fe and tried to put the incident out of her mind.
“She did not want to think about what happened that night
or confront him about that night because she wanted to be in control of what may or may not have happened,” the affidavit says. “She wanted to look forward, not back.”
Before and after that incident, the woman told police, Pope had pressured her to spend time with him, the affidavit says. At one point, she discovered her phone was “sharing” her location with Pope, a setting she did not enable herself, she told police.
About a week ago, she said, one of Pope’s roommates called to tell her videos had been found of him having sex with unconscious women.
According to the affidavit, the tattoos on one woman in a video match those of the Washington woman. When she was shown an image, the affidavit says, she confirmed a tattoo in the video matches her own.
In a text message sent to the Washington woman the day before she spoke to police, the affidavit says, Pope told her he was worried she wouldn’t remember the night in the hotel because she had been drinking, and he argued the pair had consensual sex but that he stopped when she fell asleep.
Detective Blake Byford from the Santa Fe Police Department wrote in the affidavit that “what Mr. Pope is describing does not occur.”
The woman is “completely unconscious” during the sexual encounter, Byford wrote, and at no point does the woman appear to be a willing or engaged participant.
Police have seen a number of images and videos, the affidavit says, that show a man having sex with women who appear to be unconscious. In some of the videos and images, the affidavit says, the man “appears to be Redwolf Pope.”
The Washington woman told police that Pope, identified in other news media as a member of the Tlingit tribe of the Pacific Northwest and a Native American activist, is well respected by the community.
He has spoken on The O’Reilly Factor about the Native perspective of Thanksgiving and protested the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock. He also gave a TED Talk on Dakota pipeline protests.
According to the TEDx Seattle website, Pope gave a talk titled “Lessons of Courage from Standing Rock.” His bio on that website describes him as a tech entrepreneur and a tribal attorney who “served as the liaison between Elders, Veterans and the legal team at the Dakota Access Pipeline protests.”
In court documents, Pope’s roommates describe him as the traveling, self-employed owner of the companies MediaDojo LLC and Redwolf Law LLC.
A spokeswoman with the Tulalip Tribal Court in Washington state confirmed he has been a member of the tribal bar since 2013, though his status is inactive because he hasn’t paid membership fees.
Pope is not listed as a member of state bars in New Mexico or Washington.
Pope has not faced any other criminal charges in New Mexico, according to online court documents, but a roommate in Santa Fe petitioned for a restraining order against him after taking the allegations of sex abuse to police.
The petition says Pope “has been upset and sending angry messages as the investigation goes on.”
“I don’t feel he’s safe to be around after seeing his violent acts against women,” the roommate wrote in the petition for the restraining order. “Make the defendant stay away from me.”
A judge denied the request after the petitioner failed to appear for a hearing, court records show.
Messages for many of Pope’s roommates were not returned Tuesday.
A phone call to Pope was returned by his lawyer, Amy Sirignano of Albuquerque, who declined to comment on the charges.
Williams said Pope was not in police custody Tuesday afternoon. She asked that anyone with knowledge of his whereabouts contact police at 505-428-3710.