Ex-Ranger Wetteland takes stand in Denton trial, denies child sex assaults in shower

From the witness stand at his trial, John Wetteland on Thursday recalled his youth in Sebastopol, California, a year at junior college and his ascendancy in 1989 to the big leagues when he was drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The former Texas Rangers relief pitcher spoke fondly of the quiet peace of his early life in the country that yielded during his professional baseball career to major cities and frequent travel.

In order to maintain warm relationships, Wetteland for a time arranged for nannies to join him, his then-wife and their twin daughters as he played on the road, he told jurors at his trial on three counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child in 462nd District Court in Denton County.

Wetteland traced for jurors his professional life after he retired from playing in 2000 and shifted to coaching. He testified he was certain he did not want to travel with a team and took an advisory coaching position only when the Rangers agreed to such an arrangement.

Wetteland won a chuckle from some observers in the courtroom gallery when he referenced the Rangers’ listless performance at a time when was in a position to help the team improve.

“I’m sorry we didn’t get better,” he said.

The lines of questioning from defense attorney Caroline Simone then turned to the horrid matter at hand.

Wetteland denied he forced a boy to perform oral sex acts on him on three occasions inside a shower in Bartonville.

“Did that happen?” Simone asked of a sex act prosecutors allege occurred when the boy was 4.

“No,” Wetteland testified forcefully.

“Did that happen when he was 5?” Simone asked.

“No,” Wetteland answered.

“Did that happen when he was 6?” Simone asked.

“No,” Wetteland said.

Prosecutors argued to Judge Lee Ann Breading that Wetteland’s testimony opened the door for them to explore on cross-examination topics that legally would have been otherwise kept from jurors.

Prosecutor Lindsey Sheguit argued outside the presence of the jury that Wetteland’s life involved elements beyond the religious activity and wholesomeness he had earlier recalled. Jurors should learn of Wetteland’s treatment for the abuse of narcotics, alcohol and prescription pills and for sex addiction. Sheguit argued the panel should also hear of his former wife’s discovery of gay pornography on a computer that she believed Wetteland viewed.

Breading ruled the state could not ask Wetteland about the details of those matters in front of the jury.

Wetteland suggested a letter, in which prosecutors say the boy wrote at age 18 of the acts, was crafted by an aspiring writer in the boy’s life.The letter’s word choice, elaborate language and sentence structure do not match the accuser’s style, Wetteland said.

The boy’s account of the sex acts is a lie, Wetteland testified.

The former chief of the Argyle Independent School District Police Department on Wednesday read the letter to jurors.

“John raped me multiple times,” according to the letter that prosecutors have said the boy wrote 12 years after the final assault. Now 22, the person alleging he was the victim of the sex assaults recalled them in testimony earlier in the trial.

The letter, which the boy’s mother testified was intended to be sent to people connected to Wetteland but was discovered by school district employees, described Wetteland rebuffing the boy’s attempts to discuss the assaults by telephone.

It described one sexual assault per year when the boy was 4, 5 and 6 years old. The letter’s author wrote of a fogged bathroom window and a disagreement with Wetteland on the water temperature during a shower.

If the jury finds him guilty, Wetteland faces a prison term of 25 years to life on each count. Wetteland is 56 and lives in Trophy Club.

The Argyle school district’s chief technology officer testified Wednesday about the circumstances under which a student’s computer use would result in an email alert to school administrators.

The district learned of the letter via an electronic system that monitors student accounts, Greg Royer said.

On cross examination from Derek Adame, another Wetteland defense attorney, Royer testified that the district could not know who authored material that results in an alert.

“You don’t know who’s at the other end of that keyboard, do you?” Adame asked.

“Correct,” Royer said.

A counselor and assistant principal reported the letter to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.

Prosecutors also presented a series of teachers and classmates who knew the boy when he was an Argyle High School student. They testified they considered him to be truthful. The defense called to the witness stand a sister of the boy who told jurors that he sometimes told tall tales and that she did not believe the sexual assault accusations are true.

The victim was 16 in 2016 when he told his mother and his mother’s partner of the sexual abuse that he said occurred between 2004 and 2006.

The victim’s mother told jurors she did not report her son’s sexual assault account to police or other authorities. About two years later, when the boy was a senior in high school, his mother insisted he relate the abuse in the letter.

The defense rested its case on Thursday, and jurors will hear closing arguments on Friday.