Former Spokane Police officer’s wife testifies in his defense during rape trial

The wife of a former Spokane police officer on trial for rape testified on his behalf during his trial Wednesday.

Nathan Nash, 39, is on trial for two counts of rape along with unlawful imprisonment after two women accused him of sexually assaulting them in 2019.

A then-22-year-old woman has testified Nash sexually assaulted her in October 2019 during a follow-up visit to her claim that her boyfriend assaulted her a day earlier. Another woman, 41, testified that Nash raped her on a follow-up visit the day after she reported her neighbor had physically assaulted her in July 2019. The second woman didn’t report the assault until August 2021.

On Wednesday morning, Det. Brad Humphrey with the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office testified about the timeline he constructed of Nash’s actions on the day of the suspected July 2019 assault.

Similar to testimony earlier in the week, Humphrey said there was a gap in the GPS signal from an application on Nash’s work laptop from about 5:20 p.m. to about 6:20 p.m., when prosecutors allege the assault took place.

Shawna Ernst, a Spokane city employee who manages the application that tracks officers’ locations, testified Wednesday that there was no indication the app had malfunctioned. Instead, she said, the data indicates Nash closed out of the app, which paused the GPS tracking of his vehicle.

Nash’s wife, Kristeen Nash, testified about a phone call she overheard between the 41-year-old woman and her husband in September 2020. The couple has been married for nearly 20 years and has two children, she said.

The woman called Nathan Nash, according to call logs from the defense, and they spoke for more than 20 minutes. Kristeen Nash said she asked her husband to put the call on speaker phone, which he did. During the call, her husband told the woman details of the sexual assault allegations made against him by the other woman in fall 2019, Kristeen Nash said.

Kristeen Nash also said she was texting her husband during the evening of July 6, 2019, when the 41-year-old woman reported to police that Nathan Nash had raped her.

When cross-examined by prosecutors, Kristeen Nash agreed there was a gap in the messages from about 5:25 p.m. to 6:26 p.m., which is when prosecutors argue the rape occurred.

The trial also saw new testimony Wednesday on the woman from the July 2019 incident.

Dr. David Potter, a psychiatrist with Frontier Behavioral Health, testified that he treated the 41-year-old woman in 2020.

Potter said he conducted four phone conversations with the woman in 2020 and diagnosed her with schizoaffective disorder bipolar type.

The woman had already received that diagnosis from another health care provider, but Potter said he couldn’t recall when or who made that diagnosis.

Schizoaffective disorder is a mood disorder where a patient must have at least a two-week period of delusions and/or hallucinations to be diagnosed, Potter said. He found evidence that the woman was suffering from delusions or hallucinations and prescribed her Zyprexa, an anti-psychotic medication.

The woman had already been prescribed the drug by another provider, Potter said. The woman didn’t agree with the diagnosis, which is a common occurrence among patients, Potter added.

Potter said he had no information on what if any treatment the woman received from April 2019 to October 2020.

The defense is expected to call more witnesses Thursday.