Lyndreth Wall was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Gordon Gallagher, who stated the former Ute Mountain Ute tribal councilman and spiritual healer deliberately exploited women’s spiritual faith and trust in his healing practice to satisfy his sexual desires.
“The abuse of power is striking,” Gallagher said as he delivered Wall’s sentence during a hearing in a Durango federal courtroom.
“These individuals came to you for help,” he said. “You used your wits, sacred objects, and you used your knowledge of what was important to these individuals in religious context to get something you could not have gotten: your sexual gratification.”
The judge said the case, which ended with Wall’s conviction after a 12-day jury trial that took place late October through November, was extraordinary and difficult.
Gallagher said he wasn’t condoning robbers who take things using force, but their wrongdoing is blatant. People understand immediately what happened, how and who harmed them; whereas, Gallagher told Wall, harming through trust and “trickery” compounds injury and confusion the women have faced for years.
The sentence came after Gallagher heard argument on a disputed pre-sentencing report, after both attorneys presented their respective sentence requests and one woman provided a victim impact statement.
Wall was found guilty on 15 counts involving sexual abuse and abusive sexual contact occurring on the Ute Mountain Ute reservation while he was acquitted of five other counts.
Five of the counts carried a possible life sentence and Wall received two- and three-year sentences for the remaining counts. The judge recommended the term be served at the Federal Correctional Institution-Englewood, a lower-security men’s prison in Littleton with supervised release – should Wall be released from prison. Gallagher added that U.S. Attorneys Jeffrey Graves and Josh Player have 60 days to file a restitution request.
During the trial, the jury heard from six women, whose visibly emotional testimonies disclosed Wall sexually abused them during traditional ceremonies when they believed they would receive healing from a reputable medicine man in Towaoc. A sixth woman was permitted to testify under Federal Rule 413.
One woman recounted being 13 when the abuse occurred, after which she testified Wall told her not to tell anyone, including his wife and her mother, or they would be angry. Another woman testified she initially sought a blessing from Wall following a divorce and this led to abuse in a hotel room. Others recounted groping and abuse in a trailer and during repeated healing sessions for what they believed to be alcoholism or depression treatments.
Over the course of the trial, there was extensive legal argument, specially on what evidence jurors were allowed to hear.
Wall’s defense attorneys Laura Suelau and Summer Woods substantially pressed each of the government’s witnesses during cross-examinations. For the women, the defense focused on – among other things – incongruence in timeline and memory while also questioning how the Federal Bureau of Investigation and its investigators handled the case.
At the sentencing hearing Tuesday, Suelau asked Gallagher to impose a sentence of 168 months, or 14 years, arguing a life sentence wasn’t fair or necessary.
She said while Wall “doggedly” maintains his innocence, they also respect the jury’s verdict. She argued Wall, 60, should be sentenced “as a whole person” and that should consider mitigating factors such as his age and health condition, partial blindness and use of a cane to walk, community service, family support, decades of sobriety and a record of no prior criminal history.
“He attends all available religious services and helped inmates get access to voting, which was reported on in The Denver Post,” she said Tuesday. “Mr. Wall came to court today with a letter from an inmate. … He talks about Mr. Wall having faith in a higher power, and he has witnessed Mr. Wall give guidance to other people.”
Suelau argued Wall has continually lived by a maxim first taught as a little boy. She said a Southern Ute woman once told him, “be good to one another.”
“That is the Mr. Wall that sits before your honor,” she said. “During his time on tribal council, he did make a difference, he was a leader. He was a council member who showed up when other tribal members didn’t.”
The prosecutor argued for a life sentence.
“‘Be good to one another,’ (that’s) the advice this defendant was given as a young boy and I sure wish he would have followed that advice. That is not what happened in this case. Today is about accountability and protection,” Player said.
Player walked through his recommendation focusing on the impacted women and argued Wall turned to the “medicine way” to gain their silence and access, showing “textbook” behavior for how to carry out abuse.
“These women were affected in many ways: some withdrew, some experienced insomnia or shut down,” he said. “These women will carry this weight unnecessarily for the rest of their lives – an unwanted passenger.”
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