Jury selection begins in second criminal trial for final Haskell rape suspect

The second criminal trial for Galen Satoe, one of two former Haskell Indian Nations University students accused of rape, began on Tuesday with jury selection.

This is the third criminal trial connected to the November 2014 incident. Satoe and Jared Wheeler, the other Haskell student, previously faced criminal trials that both ended with hung juries.

Wheeler, 21, was convicted in November 2016, after entering a no-contest plea, of a single felony charge of aggravated battery. He had originally faced two felony counts of rape and one felony count of aggravated criminal sodomy in what would have been his second trial.

Galen Satoe

Now in his own second trial, Satoe, 22, faces two felony counts of rape and a single felony count of aiding and abetting attempted rape.

Attorneys began to vet prospective jurors on Tuesday, and prosecutor C.J. Rieg said the trial is scheduled to continue into next week.

Satoe faced a criminal trial in the summer of 2016, though jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict and a mistrial was declared in August.

In past trials the alleged victim testified that she partied with Satoe and Wheeler in the evening hours of Nov. 14, 2014, and into the next morning. Eventually the three were left alone in Satoe and Wheeler’s dormitory room on the Haskell campus.

Satoe then began to force himself on the woman, she testified, and when she asked Wheeler for help, he instead held her down and the two men raped her.

Throughout the trials, the defense maintained that the encounter was a consensual threesome.

Jared Wheeler

Both men were arrested on Nov. 15, 2014. And both men were released from jail that same day after posting a $75,000 bond each. They were expelled from the university.

After Wheeler’s aggravated battery conviction, Douglas County District Court Judge Paula Martin sentenced him in January to serve 60 days in jail, noting that was the maximum amount of time she could mandate due to the Kansas Sentencing Guidelines.

Martin also said during the sentencing that she was disappointed that Wheeler still hadn’t apologized for his actions and was focused only on how the court proceedings had affected his own life rather than the alleged victim’s.

Martin is also presiding over Satoe’s current trial.

As attorneys addressed the prospective jurors on Tuesday, Satoe sat silently in the courtroom wearing a dark jacket and khaki pants; a Bible rested on the table in front of him.