Jury convicts Duchesne man of raping wife after she didn't do the dishes

ROOSEVELT — A Duchesne County jury has convicted a man of sexually assaulting his wife after a fight because she hadn't done the dishes.

The 39-year-old Duchesne man was found guilty of one count of object rape, a first-degree felony, Wednesday night in 8th District Court after little more than an hour of deliberation by a jury of seven men and one woman. He is not being named by the Deseret News in an effort to protect his victim's identity.

The man's wife testified that her husband attacked her in the fall of 2006 as she slept in the bedroom of the family's single-wide mobile home. The woman, who looked down at her lap through much of her testimony, said her husband was angry because she hadn't done the dishes and began screaming at her and punching her.

The woman said she grabbed a wooden broom that was near the bed to try to fend off her husband's blows. But the man took the broom from her, she said, and sodomized her with it.

"I was yelling and screaming," the woman testified. "I was screaming, '... Don't let this happen! What's wrong with you?' I was thinking 'I can't believe this is happening to me.' "

The woman said her husband forced her to cower facing the wall after the attack for at least five minutes. Then, she was allowed to go to the bathroom, where she discovered she was bleeding. The bleeding lasted for two days, but the woman did not seek medical attention.

"I knew he wouldn't let me, so I didn't even ask," she told jurors, adding later that if she had sought treatment or reported the attack to anyone, "he would kill me."

The woman initially said she couldn't call for help because there was no telephone in the trailer but later, after questioning from defense attorney Roland Uresk, changed her testimony and said she was unsure if there was a working phone in the home at the time of the attack. Her certainty also wavered on whether she had access to a vehicle to drive herself to the hospital.

Uresk told the jury that the woman didn't come forward with the rape allegation until her husband told her he planned to end their 16-year marriage. His client testified that his wife had the means to seek help if the incident had occurred because she managed his handyman business and had access to bank accounts, a cell phone, a home phone and the Internet. He said he never sexually assaulted his wife.

"Absolutely not," the man said. "Absolutely not."