1 week Ago By MIKE SMITH [email protected]
Jurors on Tuesday began deliberating the fate of a 57-year-old man accused of showing pornographic videos to a 7-year-old girl and then sexually assaulting her in his apartment bedroom in Butte. Raul Beltran testified in his own defense earlier Tuesday, saying he had never seen the little girl before she testified at his trial Monday and never had any kind of contact with her. “She was never in my apartment,” Beltran said, adding he had maintained his innocence “from the get go” 14 months ago when the girl’s accusations surfaced and reached police.
Raul Beltran testifies in his own defense in state District Court in Butte on Tuesday, March 25, 2025. Defense lawyers noted several times Tuesday that the girl, now 8, looked around courtroom while testifying Monday and said “he’s not here” even though Beltran was sitting at a nearby table. “That is reasonable doubt,” and grounds for acquittal said public defender Shelby Danna.
Prosecutors said the girl was nervous and Beltran looked significantly different than he did 14 months ago — he was much heavier now, had longer hair, a full beard and wasn’t wearing glasses. The girl told a forensic interviewer about the alleged sex acts, talked about tiger blankets and other specific items in Beltran’s bedroom and backed those statements with testimony Monday. She also described a pornographic video police found on one of Beltran’s cell phones, prosecutors said.
“He can’t explain why she knows everything that was in his apartment,” said prosecutor Ann Shea. “The defendant stole her innocence when he subjected her to those videos,” she said. “He stole her innocence when he assaulted her.
” Beltran is charged with sexual assault and sexual abuse of children — the latter for allegedly showing the girl sexually explicit videos on his phone. Sexual assault in this case is punishable by up to life in prison or 100 years. Sexual abuse of children in this case is punishable by up to 100 years in prison with no parole possible for the first 25 years.
Beltran was previously convicted of incest for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl in Helena in April 2005. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison, with 20 of them suspended, and was paroled in late 2020. Prosecutors were not allowed to discuss that previous case during this week’s trial, which began about 1 p.
m. Monday after a jury of 10 men and two women was selected. Prosecutors rested their case Tuesday morning after a lead police detective testified.
Beltran then took the stand and after closing arguments around 1:45 p.m., District Judge Robert Whelan asked jurors to begin deliberations.
The girl’s parents believe the alleged sexual assaults by Beltran occurred because they found a video the girl had taken of her vaginal area “to see what it looked like” and then talked about the incidents. During a forensic interview, the girl referred to Beltran as “guy” and said he tells her she is cute, gives her candy, says he loves her and they are like family, prosecutors said in charging documents. She said Beltran showed her videos of two naked people “doing stuff” and there are other girls and boys in the videos.
Beltran would undress her, put his mouth on her privates, take off his pants and have her perform sex acts on him, she said. She repeated some of that on the stand Monday but didn’t describe the acts in detail, saying “I don’t want to say.” She did agree with Shea that the specific alleged acts occurred.
She said she would enter the apartment through the back door, was told not to bring her friends and Beltran told her not to tell anyone what happened. Beltran said Tuesday that he lived with his adult sister and nobody else had ever been in the apartment except a lady friend one night months prior and the landlord. “We worked a lot and we went home,” he said in answering questions from public defender Walter Hennessey.
“We kind of kept to ourselves ...
” He said he didn’t know the little girl and had never seen her before she testified in court Monday. The girl told the forensic interviewer there were blankets with tigers on them in the bedroom and she talked about “strawberry stuff” and exercise equipment. Police took into evidence blankets with tigers on them and a bottle of strawberry lubricant from Beltran’s bathroom and they were shown to jurors Tuesday.
Beltran reiterated he has steadfastly denied the allegations from the beginning and still doesn’t know how the girl could describe things in his bedroom. “I can’t explain that whatsoever,” he said. Prosecutors said there was ample evidence and testimony to convict Beltran.
“A parent’s worst nightmare, a family’s worst nightmare – that’s what this case is all about,” said prosecutor Ellen Donohue. Defense attorneys said police collected no DNA evidence, did not interview neighbors to any extent and the girl herself said Monday that Beltran wasn’t in the room when he was actually sitting not far away. “Mr.
Beltran is not guilty of the crimes the government has charged him with,” Danna told jurors. Judge Whelan defined several elements of the law to jurors before they began deliberations and said they were “the sole judge” of whether a child’s testimony was credible or not..
