Native American activist in S.F. jail
Prosecutors say man accused of rape is flight risk, want him to stay in custody
Redwolf Pope, a Native American activist accused of raping unconscious women in Santa Fe and Seattle, was booked in the Santa Fe County jail Tuesday after losing a fight against his extradition from Phoenix, where he was arrested in late July.
Prosecutors in Santa Fe have asked a District Court judge to order Pope jailed without bond until he faces a trial in the case, arguing he “has repeatedly victimized women … using an unabashed level of deception and predation.”
They also argue Pope is a flight risk. Pope “has demonstrated an unwillingness to submit to the judicial process and a willingness to be an obstacle in the swift adjudication of his own case,” the prosecutors’ motion says.
Pope, 41, first faced allegations of sexual assault in July, when a Seattle-area woman told police in that city that Pope had raped her while she was visiting Santa Fe in August 2017.
Santa Fe police had been investigating Pope for more than a month when the charges were filed. According to a criminal complaint and search warrant affidavit, Pope’s roommates had alerted officers of possible sex crimes after they found videos that appeared to show him sexually assaulting unconscious women.
According to court documents, Santa Fe police worked with Seattle police to investigate the case.
Pope was arrested in Phoenix the day after a judge in Santa Fe issued an arrest warrant charging him with criminal
sexual penetration and other crimes.
His attorney filed a motion asking a local judge to quash the warrant. In the motion, Stephen Aarons argued Pope did not rape the women shown in the videos and that Pope was on his way to Santa Fe to turn himself in when Phoenix officers arrested him.
The judge rejected Aarons’ request and ordered Santa Fe County sheriff ’s deputies to retrieve Pope from Phoenix. Sheriff ’s office spokesman Juan Ríos said Pope was booked in the local jail Tuesday afternoon.
While Pope was fighting extradition, prosecutors in Seattle charged him with two additional counts of sexual assault, stemming from the same set of videos Pope’s roommates had given to authorities.
Seattle police documents say detectives have identified another woman they believe Pope assaulted, based on video evidence. Pope also is accused of assaulting a third woman at his Seattle apartment in November 2016; Seattle police were still working to identify her earlier this month.
Aarons could not be reached for comment on the case.
A District Court judge is set to rule next week whether Pope will stay in jail until his trial.