Red Lake man sentenced to 144 months in prison
for sexually abusing a minor
A 44-year-old Red Lake man was sentenced today in federal court to 144 months in prison in connection with sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl Jan. 30, 2007, at the Seven Clans Casino and Hotel in Thief River Falls.
United States District Court Chief Judge James Rosenbaum also sentenced Simon Anthony White Jr. to a lifetime of supervised release April 29 in Minneapolis. White pleaded guilty in September 2007 to one count of sexual abuse of a minor, a charge to which he was indicted for in March 2007.
“What you have done is a horrifying, unspeakable crime,” Judge Rosenbaum told White. “There is not an excuse for it, and 12 years is an appropriate sentence. The community needs that.”
According to a Federal Bureau of Investigation affidavit, authorities responded to a report of a sexual assault that occurred in a hotel room. The victim told police that she had been sleeping and when she woke up, White was on top of her. She added that White had non-consensual intercourse with her.
A cousin of the victim, who was also staying in the hotel room, told police that she was in the shower during the assault. When she got out of the shower, she heard the room door close and saw the victim “texting” while in bed. The victim had typed “he raped me” in her text message.
White, the cousin and another man had been drinking in the room earlier that morning. White and the other man were both hotel employees. The other man left the room and told police when he returned he saw White standing outside his hotel room door in the hallway. When the man entered the room, he saw that the victim had texted the message “he raped me” on the man’s cellphone.
The court later learned through consensual DNA testing that White was the assailant.
This case was the result of an investigation by the Red Lake Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Erica H. MacDonald.