Former nurse tried again on rape charge

Former Eastern State Hospital nurse Guylin Michael Johnston may need a new defense for his second trial for allegedly raping a female patient.

He now faces criminal charges for the conspiracy theory he presented to jurors in an earlier trial.

There is only a one in 26 million chance male genetic material mixed with the woman’s saliva in her chewing gum could have come from anyone but Johnston, a Washington State Patrol forensic scientist testified Tuesday in Johnston’s second rape trial.

The scientist, Denise Olson, said the male DNA in the gum was so mixed with the female DNA that she couldn’t separate the two. But Olson determined there was only a one in 5.3 quadrillion chance that the female DNA came from anyone but the woman who says Johnston forced her to give him oral sex in a hospital laundry room.

Johnston can’t claim he had consensual sex with the 30-year-old woman because she was under his control at the time of the alleged second-degree rape in June 2004. Any sex between Johnston and the suicidal mental patient would have been illegal.

Hospital officials have testified that Johnston, a licensed practical nurse, had been assigned to accompany the woman for an hour to make sure she didn’t harm herself.

This week’s trial is Johnston’s second on the charge. Despite the DNA evidence, a jury was unable to reach a verdict on the rape charge in May, and Superior Court Judge Neal Rielly declared a mistrial on that count.

The first jury acquitted Johnston of an indecent liberties charge, leaving only the rape charge for this week’s trial.

The alleged victim’s testimony in May included several discrepancies from what she previously told authorities. One of the inconsistencies concerned how she said Johnston groped her after raping her, and the alleged groping was the basis for the indecent liberties charge.

Johnston offered what Deputy Prosecutor John Love called a “space alien” defense to explain how his genetic material got mixed with his patient’s in a wad of gum in tissue in her coat pocket.

One of Johnston’s co-workers at the hospital, Jackie K. Hughes, testified in May that she was recruited by a third hospital employee, mental health technician Mike Evans, to frame Johnston. Hughes, 50, testified that she had sex with Johnston to collect his semen, which she passed to Evans so he could frame Johnston.

No explanation was offered for why the alleged rape victim would have participated in the conspiracy.

Evans said Hughes was “totally lying.” Authorities said she later agreed, and she is expected to testify against Johnston in this week’s trial. Evans’ denial wasn’t heard by jurors because no one called him to testify.

As a result of Hughes’ reported recantation, Johnston was charged with one count of intimidating a witness and one count of bribing a witness. He is to be tried on those charges on Nov. 14.

According to charging documents in the witness-tampering case, Johnston used a combination of cash and coercion to get her to lie for him. After Johnston’s first trial, Hughes reportedly told a Washington State Patrol detective that Johnston lent her $1,000 and suggested he would harm her children or animals if she didn’t cooperate.

The mental patient Johnston allegedly raped also has been charged since last May’s trial. She faces trial Nov. 28 on a first-degree robbery count.

Court documents say the alleged rape victim and two other women took a fourth woman’s purse and all her clothing in a scheme concocted by a co-defendant who was angry at the woman who was robbed.

The defendants are accused of using a ruse to get the robbery victim to go with them to a railroad underpass in the 1900 block of West Ohio, where they took her purse and left her naked except for her socks.

The mentally ill woman that Johnston is accused of raping allegedly swung her fist at the naked robbery victim, but missed.