Man accused of injecting and raping Pasco woman, says he did nothing wrong

The case of a Pasco man accused of raping a woman after injecting her with insulin is about “near-fatal injuries, suspicious circumstances and inconsistent statements,” a prosecutor says.

Jurors in the trial of James E. Bernhard need to analyze everything over the next two weeks because the interrogation video, lab reports and witness testimony all will lead to guilty verdicts, said Deputy Prosecutor Maureen Astley.

Defense attorney Shelley Ajax disagreed, telling jurors that prosecutors can’t prove what they say Bernhard did more than three years ago.

Yes, Bernhard gave the woman a few clicks of her insulin pen to manage her diabetes after a night of drinking alcohol, said Ajax. But he was asleep when he heard two “booms” minutes apart and then found the woman having a seizure and bleeding in the shower in April 2016.

Nobody can say how the woman was injured because she was in the middle of a medical crisis and Bernhard had been in another room, his lawyer said.

Bernhard, a wildlife biologist at the Hanford nuclear reservation, did nothing wrong and should be cleared at the end of the trial, she argued.

Bernhard, 41, is charged in Franklin County Superior Court with first- and second-degree assault and second-degree rape.

The two assaults include the allegation he committed the crimes with sexual motivation.

The case was scheduled for trial more than a dozen times over the years, but was re-scheduled repeatedly due to conflicts with the lawyers’ schedules and other issues.

The first trial last fall ended in a mistrial when three jurors ended up excused for various reasons.

Bernhard has been out of custody since posting bond.

Medic noted low blood-sugar level

Pasco paramedics were called to the home at 3:30 a.m. April 11, 2016. They found the woman in the shower bleeding profusely with bruises on her face and head, and a blood-sugar level so low that it didn’t register on a paramedic’s meter, said Astley.

The woman was taken to Kadlec Regional Medical Center in Richland for a diabetic episode, but doctors discovered she had severe sexual assault cuts. Medical staff said she lost about half of the blood in her body and required surgery to stop the bleeding.

The woman had been at a barbecue with Bernhard and friends the evening before. She had a drink or two while out, but did not appear drunk when she left, according to Astley.

The woman later told investigators she believed she was injected with an excess amount of insulin while sleeping. That reportedly left her vulnerable and defenseless in a coma-like state.

Defense critical of police work

The defense says the woman failed to take care of herself, with her diabetes and alcoholism and other medical issues.

Ajax called it a “medically complex case,” and said they only know that the woman had a seizure while in the shower. The woman cannot say what led up to that or what happened after, she said.

The defense criticized Pasco police for not doing their job and taking days to get a search warrant for the shower, and said her client was cooperative through the investigation.

The trial is expected to last through next week.