Rock climber convicted of 2016 Yosemite assault

A 39-year-old professional rock climber was found guilty by a federal jury for the aggravated sexual assault of a woman in Yosemite National Park.

Charles Barrett was convicted of repeatedly raping a woman in August 2016 while he worked and lived at the national park, the U.S. attorney’s office announced in a news release.

A jury reached a unanimous decision Feb. 13 after a seven-day trial in Sacramento federal court, finding Barrett guilty of two counts of aggravated sexual abuse and one count of abusive sexual contact.

He is scheduled to be sentenced on May 21 and faces a maximum penalty of life in prison and a $250,000 fine, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

In an email, Barrett’s attorney, Timothy Patrick Hennessy, relayed a message from his client that said, “I have been wrongly convicted. I will continue to fight to clear my name.”

Prosecutors said Barrett would travel across the country to pursue rock climbing, visiting different regions based on the season. Barrett’s defense attorneys said he was a sponsored climber and well known in the rock-climbing community.

The government’s case described Barrett as aggressive and violent toward his former partners and others.

On the night of the attack, he invited his victim to watch a meteor shower in a remote part of the park, where he choked and raped her, according to court documents.

Out of fear of further harm, she did not try to flee and was repeatedly sexually assaulted over that weekend, according to prosecutors.

After the woman left the park, Barrett later told her in a text message that he wanted to see her again. But she told him that he had raped her and she never wanted to see him. Barrett denied raping the woman and wrote in a later message, “Can we be friends? I miss you.”

She replied, “I find it hard to be friends with guys who rape me.”

He continued to message her about the assault, according to prosecutors, but she did not report the incident until April 2020. Within days of her going to police, she started to receive mysterious text messages and phone calls from an unknown number, as though Barrett knew she had spoken to authorities, court documents show.

In a separate string of text messages, Barrett wrote to several friends that he planned to kill the twin daughters of a ranger who had previously stopped him for driving under the influence “because [the ranger] ruined [his] life,” according to court documents.

He also told his friends that he had a .44 magnum and a .45-caliber firearm. He then wrote to his friends that he would “die with her,” but it was unclear whom he was referring to. He then said he was going to go to prison for the rest of his life and had nothing to live for, court records show. It wasn’t until years later that Barrett admitted to investigators that he was afraid to face prison time if his victim told authorities about the rape.

About a month after the assault, he retreated into the woods in Yosemite’s Tuolumne Meadows and was threatening to take his own life when he was taken into custody, a federal agent testified. Barrett told officers he had loaded firearms and refused to come out of the woods, but he was eventually taken to a medical center in Fresno and placed on a psychiatric hold for evaluation, according to court records.

At the time, authorities were not aware of the sexual assault. Barrett was later released.

During their investigation, federal agents learned that Barrett stalked his assault victim and spread false information about her at a restaurant where she was trying to find work in 2019. Barrett also took to Instagram around that time and compared himself to Johnny Depp, claiming he would sue his victims for defamation of character, according to court records.

Barrett was arrested in August 2022 in Mammoth Lakes. He was repeatedly labeled a flight risk and a danger to his victims by the government’s attorneys.

During his trial, jurors listened to testimony from three other women who said that Barrett sexually assaulted them in a similar manner, but due to jurisdictional challenges those incidents were not part of the prosecution’s case against him in the Eastern District of California.

“This defendant used his renown and physical presence as a rock climber to lure and intimidate victims who were part of the rock-climbing community. His violent sexual assaults were devastating to the victims, whom he later threatened in the lead-up to trial,” U.S. Atty. Phillip Talbert said in a statement.

The Times generally does not publish the names of sexual assault victims unless they come forth publicly.

During a jailhouse call with a friend in October 2022, Barrett said that something would happen to the victims and anyone else he believed harmed him.

His friend said, “Yeah, well, don’t say stuff like that, that’s gonna get you in trouble immediately and more so and make everyone believe that you are capable of the things you are accused of. So you basically can’t think like that.”

Barrett replied, “Well, if I don’t get out of here I got people in here that I made contact with because they f— put me in here with murderers.”