Former Idaho MP Aaron von Ehlinger testifies on his behalf during the third day of his rape trial in Ada County Court on Thursday, April 28, 2022. A former Idaho lawmaker was convicted Friday of raping a 19-year-old practitioner after a dramatic trial in which the young woman walked away from the witness stand during the testimony, saying “I can not do that.” The practitioner told a Statehouse supervisor that Aaron von Ehlinger raped her in his apartment after the two had dinner at a Boise restaurant in March 2021. He said the sex was consensual. At the time, von Ehlinger was Lewiston’s state representative, but later resigned. Von Ehlinger, 39, was found guilty on Friday of rape. He was found not guilty of sexual assault with a foreign object. The sentence is scheduled for July 28. The Associated Press generally does not identify individuals who say they have been sexually assaulted and referred to the woman in this case as “Jane Doe” at her request. Doe non-stop described the moments when the alleged attack started, before he left the witness step abruptly. “He tried to put his toes between my legs and I closed my knees,” Doe said. In it, he got up. “I can not do that,” he said, hurrying out of the courtroom. The judge gave prosecutors 10 minutes to find her to determine if she would return and continue her testimony. When she did not, the judge told the jurors that they had to “knock (Doe’s testimony) out of your mind as if it never happened” because the defense could not consider it. During his testimony on Thursday, von Ehlinger often spoke in a clear, loud voice directly to jurors, saying he and Doe had decided to return to his apartment to “knock” after eating at a fancy Boise restaurant. Then they started going out on the couch, he said. “Things were going well and I asked (Doe) if she would like to move into the bedroom,” said von Ehlinger. “He said, ‘Sure.’ “We got up, shook hands and went into the bedroom.” The discussions lasted for seven hours until almost 8 p.m. on Thursday before the jury decides to adjourn the evening. At one point, the judge called the lawyers to his room because the jury had asked a question. No details were released regarding the jury’s investigation. When the allegations became known – mainly due to the investigation into legislative ethics – Doe faced relentless harassment from some of von Ehlinger’s supporters. Her name, photo and personal information about her life were repeatedly published in “doxxing” incidents. One of the people who harassed her was often in the courthouse to attend the trial, but law enforcement authorities forbade the man to go to the floor where the case was being heard. During the final hearing, Ada County Deputy Attorney General Katelyn Farley told jurors the case involved “power in the wrong hands” used in Doe’s “great disaster.” Von Ehlinger had social, political and physical power over the petite trainee, Farley said. “He was using this force to rape her and to penetrate her violently,” Farley said, pointing to von Ellinger. Doe resisted in several ways, she said, citing testimonies from law enforcement investigators and a sexual assault nurse interviewed by Doe after the alleged attack. “The words show a lack of consensus. His excuses for “why shouldn’t this happen” show a lack of consensus. “Pulling your head back and getting injured shows a lack of consent,” Farley said. However, von Ehlinger’s defense attorney, Jon Cox, told jurors that the prosecution’s case was “red herring” and said von Ehlinger was a credible man willing to take the position to share his side of the story. . Earlier this week, jurors heard investigators and a nurse conduct rape tests. They testified that Doe said she was stuck while von Ehlinger forced her to have oral sex and that she knew she often held a gun and placed it in a chest of drawers near the bed at the time of the attack. A nurse also testified that Doe had a “goose egg” on the back of her head from hitting the wall or headboard while trying to pull her head away from von Ehlinger’s grip.
