Man convicted in child rape case

A Coeur d’Alene jury deliberated for about 90 minutes Thursday before finding 32-year-old Corey S. McGrath guilty of lewd and lascivious conduct for molesting a 5-year-old girl and infecting her with gonorrhea.

The child was one of two that McGrath, a Coeur d’Alene construction worker, is accused of molesting. He faces another jury trial next month for the second felony charge.

His sentencing for Thursday’s conviction will be Aug. 21 in Coeur d’Alene’s First District Court. A judge could send him to prison to serve a term of life behind bars, the maximum sentence.

McGrath’s conviction comes a day after his girlfriend, Emilie M. Barker, 30, was sentenced to three years behind bars and 12 years indeterminate for attempting to cover up McGrath’s crime.

Investigators were notified last year by healthcare workers when the 5-year-old contracted gonorrhea, but police were unable to secure test results for the sexually transmitted disease from people who had been in contact with the child.

McGrath initially refused to be tested for the disease. After he complied, neither he nor Barker would disclose the test results to police. Detectives resorted to serving a search warrant at Panhandle Health District. They learned McGrath and Barker both tested positive for gonorrhea.

After McGrath was accused of raping the 5-year-old, another victim, a 12-year-old girl, notified authorities that McGrath had also raped her.

Both children testified at McGrath’s preliminary hearing last year. A magistrate judge found enough evidence to bind over McGrath to district court on the two felony charges.

According to court records, Barker told the victims that she and McGrath would commit suicide if the girls testified against McGrath.

At Barker’s sentencing Wednesday for three felonies — one count each of conspiracy to prepare false evidence, conspiracy to intimidate a witness and conspiracy to destroy evidence — attorneys said Barker wrote a script for one of the children in an effort to exonerate McGrath, then burned the paper. The child read the script to McGrath’s mother, Sherri Wastweet, 53, who allegedly recorded a phony conversation and planned to use it as evidence to prove McGrath’s innocence.

Wastweet is charged with two felonies, criminal conspiracy and conspiracy to intimidate a witness. Her trial is Sept. 17 in Coeur d’Alene.

At Barker’s Wednesday sentencing, First District Judge John Mitchell said she was beyond reproach for intimidating children and attempting to coerce them into lying when they had demonstrated the courage to tell the truth about a crime that was committed against them.

Defense attorneys asked that Barker be placed on probation, but Mitchell said Barker still hasn’t admitted wrongdoing.

”I can’t ethically or professionally put someone on probation who cannot take responsibility for what they have done,” Mitchell said. “(These children) have been sexually molested by a man you chose to protect and you made them out to be liars. You chose to make liars out of two very brave young women who chose to tell the truth.”

McGrath initially was charged with two counts of lewd and lascivious conduct. District Judge Scott Wayman separated the charges into stand-alone cases last week, requiring two separate jury trials. A recent appellate court ruling held that it’s too prejudicial to try a series of separate incidents that have more than one victim as one case.