A professional mountain climber was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison for the 2016 sexual assault of a woman in Yosemite National Park, federal prosecutors said.
Charles Barrett, 40, was convicted of two counts of aggravated sexual abuse and one count of abusive sexual contact, according to a statement from U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California Phillip A. Talbert.
Barrett was living and working in the national park when a woman visited there for a weekend of hiking in August 2016. Barrett sexually assaulted her three times, according to court records and evidence presented at trial, prosecutors said.
Three other women testified during Barrett’s trial that he also sexually assaulted them, prosecutors said.
Barrett was not charged in these assaults because they occurred outside the jurisdiction of federal prosecutors, but the women’s testimony was recognized at trial as relevant to the charges Barrett faced, prosecutors said.
“Barrett’s long history of sexual assault supports the imposition of a life sentence,” Talbert said. “He used his status as a prominent climber to attack women in the rock climbing community, and when his victims started telling, Barrett responded by publicly lashing out with threats and intimidation. This case is a testament to the courage of the victims who reported these crimes.”
Attorneys representing Barrett could not immediately be reached for comment by NBC News on Tuesday afternoon.
One of his attorneys, Timothy P. Hennessy, told the judge that a life sentence was not appropriate because Barrett suffers from mental illness, the San Luis Obispo Tribune reported. Another attorney representing Barrett, David Torres, said he plans to appeal the case, the newspaper reported.
Barrett has a history of intimidating his victims, prosecutors said.
In 2017, seven years after he allegedly attacked one of the women who testified against him at his trial, Barrett deliberately climbed into a climbing gym where the woman was present. She disclosed Barrett’s assault to the owner to protect other women at the gym, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors say Barrett then harassed her for years. In August 2022, he was convicted of criminal threats he made earlier that year, prosecutors said.
While in custody in his latest case, prosecutors said, Barrett made hundreds of phone calls and threatened to use violence and file retaliatory lawsuits against his accusers.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
