Aaron von Ehlinger, the former state representative convicted of raping a 19-year-old legislative intern in 2022, is asking the Idaho Supreme Court to overturn his conviction.
Von Ehlinger is currently serving a minimum eight-year prison sentence, which could stretch as long as 20 years.
His victim, identified during trial by her initials, J.V., briefly took the stand, but she quickly fled the courtroom and never returned.
Instead, a sexual assault nurse who treated her paraphrased J.V.’s account on the first day of the trial.
Erik Lehtinen, Von Ehlinger’s public defender handling his appeal, said during a hearing Monday that violates his constitutional right to confront his accuser.
“Because J.V. did not testify really all of the evidence of any sort of force, any actual crime having been committed, came in through these out-of-court statements relayed through the nurse examiner,” Lehtinen said.
Still, von Ehlinger’s defense attorney never called for a mistrial or formally objected at the time.
If Judge Michael Reardon had granted a mistrial, prosecutors could’ve retried the case at a later date.
Deputy Attorney General Ken Jorgensen argues that was a tactical decision by von Ehlinger’s initial lawyer to get an acquittal and can’t be used as the basis for an appeal.
“There was no motion to strike the testimony. There was no motion for a mistrial. There was no motion that we can say preserved this [argument],” Jorgensen said.
Von Ehlinger has always maintained his innocence, saying the two simply went to dinner at a Boise restaurant and returned to a downtown condo he stayed in during the legislative session.
That's when, he said, the two began kissing and ended with her giving him oral sex.
Jurors didn't believe him. Instead, they sided with J.V., who said von Ehlinger forced his penis into her mouth after she tried to block him from putting his fingers between her legs.
She later reported the rape to an Idaho House of Representatives staffer who elevated the matter to the Speaker of the House, and eventually, Boise Police.
Justices have no timeline in which to issue their decision in the case.
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