Crime

Dasen Back in Court

By Kirk Siegler, 12-07-05

On the stand in day three of a civil trial against him, Kalispell businessman Dick Dasen - already convicted on several criminal counts for luring numerous women into sex-for-money agreements – told the court he’s addicted to sex.

Dasen, who was originally charged with, but acquitted of sexual intercourse without consent for an alleged encounter involving two teenage girls, was in court Wednesday because one of the girls is now suing for punitive damages.

“I did suggest that I wanted to see them,� Dasen said, referring to the encounter in a Kalispell apartment two years ago. “I’m a sex addict.�

In May, a jury convicted Dasen of a laundry list of crimes, including felony sexual abuse of children, three felony counts of prostitution and felony promotion of prostitution. Dasen was acquitted on the charges of sexual intercourse without consent, aggravated promotion of prostitution and five counts of solicitation of prostitution. With credit given for time served and some of the sentence suspended, he is serving 20 months in prison for the crimes.

Throughout the criminal trial, police said Dasen paid millions of dollars to vulnerable, impoverished girls – many of them addicted to meth - in exchange for sexual favors.

Discussion in court Wednesday centered on what exactly constitutes a sexual assault, and whether Dasen was physically involved with the girls that afternoon. Dasen insisted he only watched and didn’t directly participate.

“I didn’t force them to keep going,� he testified.

Prosecutors told a different story. They alleged Dasen performed oral sex on the girls against their will, after luring them to the apartment building. In return, he later paid the girls several thousand dollars.

Attorneys for Dasen argued that the girls knew what they were getting into.

Dasen was once one of the Flathead’s most prominent businessman, a developer with financial holdings that stretched from Kalispell’s Outlaw Inn to Whitefish’s Winter Sports Inc., the company that owns Big Mountain Ski Resort. Dasen was also a respected philanthropist. He volunteered at Christian Financial Counseling, an organization that helped people in debt. Many of those people, in Dasen’s case, were young women, who he would later pay for sex in an elaborate prostitution ring that spread throughout the rural northwest Montana community.

In court today, Dasen admitted that he’s come to realize he took advantage of the girls’ desperate situations.

“I was in a one-up position on them,� Dasen said. “I had the money and they needed it.�

Dasen’s civil trial before U.S. Magistrate Leif Erickson is expected to last most of this week.

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