Evidence piling up in Dasen case
By CHERY SABOL
The Daily Inter Lake
Documents filed in time for an omnibus hearing Wednesday in the prostitution case of Dick Dasen Sr. show a staggering amount of witnesses and exhibits piling up in his prosecution.
More than 7,470 exhibits and 58 witnesses are listed in a notice filed Wednesday by prosecuting Deputy County Attorney Dan Guzynski. No witnesses or exhibits have yet been submitted to the court by Dasen's attorney, George Best, of Kalispell.
District Judge Stewart Stadler, who has scheduled a monthlong trial for Dasen beginning in January, had ordered any basic motions in the case to be filed by the omnibus hearing Wednesday.
He extended that deadline by two days for Best, in case Best wishes to argue that the trial be moved because of pretrial publicity or that certain evidence be disallowed in the trial.
Dasen, 62, is a Kalispell businessman. He has pleaded innocent to promotion of prostitution, aggravated promotion of prostitution, sexual intercourse without consent and sexual abuse of children. Charges list more than 20 women whom Dasen allegedly "encouraged, induced, or otherwise purposely caused" to become or remain prostitutes.
He allegedly paid millions of dollars to women for sex over the course of 20 years. One was reportedly 15, prompting the charge of sexual intercourse without consent because children under the age of 16 are presumed incapable of legally consenting to sex.
The abuse charge relates to photos Dasen allegedly took of girls engaged in sex acts.
In a "just notice" filed in court Wednesday, Guzynski details Dasen's alleged involvement with another woman who had not previously been mentioned.
According to the notice, Dasen had a sexual relationship with Cheri Corcoran from 1993 until 1997.
He gave her a substantial amount of money and helped her obtain vehicles, eventually persuading her to quit her job and rely on his support, the document says. Then, Dasen allegedly said he would only continue to give her money if she had sex with him.
Dasen "also threatened Corcoran by stating to her that he was a powerful person and that Corcoran did not know what the Defendant was capable of doing."
Other court documents allege that Dasen told women that those who go to the police would wind up like a woman who was found murdered in a motel room where Dasen's DNA was discovered. He has not been charged in her death.
Corcoran's story was introduced to the file to show Dasen's motivation in giving women money and other compensation, and to illustrate that his actions involving Corcoran and the other women are part of a common scheme, the document says.
Most of the exhibits Guzynski proposes for trial are checks, allegedly written to women in exchange for sex. Court documents say that Dasen paid $1,000 for sexual encounters. Some women received more than $150,000 from him.
Other proposed exhibits include cell-phone bills, e-mails, records from more than a half dozen Kalispell motels, photographs and transcripts of interviews.
Dasen is free on bond and living in Arizona while awaiting trial on Jan. 24, 2005.