Former day-care worker acquitted of three charges

Former Columbia Falls day-care worker Pete Ampudia is free after being found innocent Monday of three counts of child molestation involving two young girls.

After some eight hours of deliberation, the Flathead District Court jury of nine women and three men could not reach a unanimous verdict on a fourth count alleging sexual assault.

District Judge Stewart Stadler declared a mistrial on that count and sent jurors home shortly after noon.

Flathead County prosecutors and parents of the girl involved in the fourth count, however, have the option of pursuing that case further.

Despite the acquittal, Ampudia said after the verdict that the toll of the past 18 months has been enormous.

"It's been absolutely devastating to my family, the pressure and the assumption that the community has had on me has been devastating," he said. Ampudia marks his 50th birthday today.

"I would say I've lost more than half my friends because they doubted," he said, noting that some people who used to talk to him when they met in public now turn the other way. "My true friends, my church friends I call them, and my family - they stuck with me.

"We lost the business. That was all we had. It was lucrative," Ampudia said of the Little Engine That Could day care that he and his wife, Claudia, operated out of their rural Columbia Falls home.

It was closed by the state temporarily in April 2008 after initial allegations surfaced that he sexually abused two 5-year-old girls there, but reopened until it closed permanently in April 2009, he said.

He said he was banned from his home between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. or when children were present, but was on house arrest the rest of the time.

With his absence, the day-care income dropped so he began applying for jobs - "anything that would put food on the table," he said. Employers turned him away repeatedly because, he suspects, they knew of the allegations against him.

In September 2008 he went to work as a cook for the Presbyterian church's Glacier Camp on Flathead Lake, where he had cooked for 15 years for men attending weekend Christian retreats. After the day care closed, his wife hired on there as an events/wedding coordinator. Both are relatively low-paying jobs.

"Because we had to go to work at the camp, we are losing our house," he said. Foreclosure proceedings are set for next month, he confirmed.

"This devastated our lives completely, it turned our lives 180 degrees."

Still, he said, he is thankful for Monday's outcome.

"I'm just happy to have my life back," he said. "I just wish I could have the last year and a half back," when he said the pressure and "the unknowing" were overwhelming.

"I praise and thank God for the miracle he did today. I am so thankful to be sitting in my house at this very moment, not in jail," Ampudia said.

After the verdict was delivered, defense attorney Julianne Hinchey said, "I'm just so relieved for him and his family. He has lost everything in the last year and a half."

She was grateful that the jury found in his favor, but said the family still is reeling.

"He lost his business. He lost his fair-weather friends. He lost his reputation in the community," Hinchey said. "And he lost his home É He's completely devastated by this, and he has been in every way."

If he had been convicted of the two counts of sexual intercourse without consent and two counts of sexual assault, Ampudia, who has no criminal history, would have faced a maximum penalty of 500 years in prison and a $200,000 fine.

"I'm very pleased with all the hard work that the jury put into this case, and I feel that they reached a just decision," Hinchey said.

The Flathead County Attorney's Office expects to announce a decision this week on whether to pursue further action.

"I knew this was a difficult case going into it," Deputy County Attorney Lori Adams said. "Anything with little kids is difficult."

She spearheaded the case from the time initial allegations were made, working with detective Kipp Tkachyk as he investigated through the Flathead County Sheriff's Office and with Travis Ahner, who joined the Flathead County Attorney's Office about a year ago.

"The courtroom is not child-friendly. I do not question either one of those girls' credibility. But to put them in that courtroom and expect them" to conduct themselves as adults, Adams said, is unrealistic.

Ahner agreed. Long sessions of questioning and repeated attempts at information gathering during the investigation phase are difficult for young children, he said.

Delays, too, worked against the prosecution, Adams said.

The four months between the time allegations came out in April until felony charges were filed in August 2008, she said, were necessary because of the county's investigation. But after that, she said every delay was sought by the defense.

"Every continuance is a detriment to the state and a benefit to the defense," Adams said.

Families of the two girls, who both were 5 at the time of the alleged incidents at the day-care center, did not want to talk with the media after the verdicts were delivered Monday.

But Adams spoke on their behalf.

"The parents respect the jury's verdict," she said. "However, these are their children and they will continue to protect them and continue to do what is in the best interest of their child."

The trial began on Sept. 8 with jury selection and opening arguments and finished Friday with final testimony and closing statements.

The jury was released to deliberations about 4:15 p.m. Friday and continued until 10 p.m. Jurors notified the bailiff that they could not come to a decision Friday night but wanted to continue deliberations on Monday morning.

They resumed at 9 a.m. Monday. By 11:30 a.m. they announced that they had reached a decision.

"The fact that they worked late into the night Fridayy then came back today and gave up more of their life" is commendable, Ahner said. "They took it seriously."

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com