Jury sees Dasen Q&A with police

Jurors heard from defendant Dick Dasen Sr. for the first time Thursday, in the form of a videotaped police interview in which Dasen openly discusses his relationships and payments to women he claims he was trying to help.

Dasen, on trial for 14 prostitution-related charges, sat close to the jury as the panel watched several hours of the police interview. Jurors took notes and followed a thick transcript of the interview, which took place just hours after Kalispell Police arrested Dasen in a hotel room that had been rigged with surveillance equipment on Feb. 7, 2004.

The video starts with Detective Kevin McCarvel telling Dasen of his rights, and Dasen declining to be represented by an attorney during the interview. Wearing a sweat shirt and jeans, Dasen calmly responds to all of the detective's questions.

Dasen repeatedly characterizes sexual encounters in various hotels across Kalispell as being voluntary on the part of the women involved. Dasen admits that he knew he was doing something wrong. He said that none of his family or friends were of aware of his activities

with dozens of women.

"I never felt it was prostitution," he tells McCarvel. "I would tell them, the money I'm giving you has nothing to do with this. I would tell them, 'You don't have to do this.' "

Dasen's arrest came about after a woman, Holly Rose, cooperated with police in arranging a "controlled meeting" with Dasen at a local hotel.

Dasen is asked how much money he planned to give Rose that day, and he answers that he intended to write a check for $2,500. He goes on to say that he didn't originally intend to have sex with Rose that day.

"If she hadn't taken her clothes off, I would have just written a check," he said, adding that he was in a hurry to get home that day.

According to earlier trial testimony, Rose was wearing just her underwear when Dasen arrived at the room, because that is how she was normally dressed for her meetings with Dasen.

A series of women have testified during the trial that they had a clear, but unstated, understanding that in order to receive any financial assistance, they had to have sex with Dasen.

During the interview, Dasen describes how he routinely provided money to women to help pay for everything from rent and utility bills to bonding them out of jail. He says he was aware of several women using the money he gave them to pay for breast augmentation surgery.

"You give them money; some of them offer sex," he says at one point.

Dasen stresses more than once during the interview that he helped hundreds of women without having any sexual relations with them, and that he helped many single mothers, declining sexual offers from some of them.

Over a prolonged segment of the interview, Dasen offers the names of well over a dozen women he recalls having sex with, and in many cases, he could recall only their first names.

More than once, he admits to having "an addiction," not necessarily to sex, but to "helping" women who are in need.

McCarvel, at one point, suggests to Dasen that the interview seems to be a welcomed opportunity for Dasen to relieve his conscience, an observation Dasen agrees with.

"When you walked in today, I was actually happy," Dasen says, referring to police officers entering the hotel room.

Dasen refers more than once during the interview to instances where women had threatened to "blackmail" him for money in exchange for keeping quiet about their activities with him, and instances where he was "ripped off" by women he was trying to help.

He described how some of the women he was involved with would refer other women to him for financial help. Eventually, he said, as many as 30 people would come to his office for help in a single day.

The detective asked if he was aware of the ages of the women he was involved with. He responded that the women were "generally in their early 20s. I was told one time that there was a girl who was 18."

During the prosecution's case, however, several girls have testified to having sex with Dasen, and receiving checks from him, when they were younger than 18.