Murder Defense Keys On Pair’s Alleged Sex Abuse Arrasmith Lawyers Focus On Binghams’ Background, And Prosecutor Fights Back

Lawyers for accused vigilante Kenneth Arrasmith this week began laying the groundwork for a defense that includes the alleged sexual abuses by murder victims Ron and Luella Bingham.

Among five defense motions filed Tuesday is an affidavit from a woman who claims to have been raped by the Binghams 20 years ago.

The Nez Perce County prosecutor, meanwhile, is hoping to keep such allegations from appearing at Arrasmith’s trial.

In a case that has drawn national attention for its aura of Western-style justice, Arrasmith, 44, faces first-degree murder charges for allegedly shooting the Binghams on May 17 at a Lewiston auto repair shop. The couple was being investigated for allegedly sexually molesting Arrasmith’s teenage daughter.

In Tuesday’s affidavit, Terri Baker of Black Hawk, S.D., said she was 17 and working in her grandfather’s auto repair shop when she befriended the Binghams, then in their 20s. In June 1975, she said, the couple took her to Luella Bingham’s mother’s home and raped her.

Baker said she told her mother about the incident 10 days later, but did not notify the police because her mother said it would end a long-standing relationship between Baker’s grandparents and Luella Bingham’s family.

Baker is among 17 women who have come forward since the Binghams’ deaths to say they were sexually abused by the couple. But it remains to be seen if their testimony becomes part of Arrasmith’s trial, slated to start Nov. 6.

In her four motions, filed to meet a Tuesday deadline imposed by 2nd District Judge Ida Rudolph Leggett, County Prosecutor Denise Rosen asked that no testimony be allowed about the character or alleged acts of the Binghams. She also asked that a jury be selected from elsewhere in the state due to media coverage of Arrasmith.

Among the other motions, the defense is asking the court to suppress testimony by witness Robert Warnock about the identity of the assailant, and by Clarkston Police Sgt. Ronald Roberts over Arrasmith’s statements and behavior when he went to the Clarkston Police Department after the killings.

The motion claims Warnock never provided police with a physical description of the shooter, he was unable to positively identify Arrasmith in the courtroom, and when shown a photo lineup was only able to say that Arrasmith “kind of has a resemblance” to the picture he picked.

Roy Mosman, an Arrasmith lawyer, charges six days passed between the time Warnock first was questioned and the time he was shown the photographs; pictures of Arrasmith were in the newspapers and on television during that interim.

Roberts’ statements should be suppressed because he did not advise Arrasmith of his rights before talking about the Binghams and Arrasmith’s daughter, or the slayings, a motion said.

Roberts’ department was investigating the Binghams before the shootings.

He also had heard rumors Ronald Bingham offered a pound of methamphetamine for Arrasmith’s death, the motion said.

Finally, Mosman requested the charges be dismissed based on the evidence.

, DataTimes