SANTA FE, N.M. (KRQE) – The Native American actor and advocate who was convicted of rape and voyeurism has lost his appeal. Redwolf Pope was found guilty of taking photos and videos of himself sexually assaulting a Seattle woman in a Santa Fe hotel room in 2017.
Pope was arrested for his crimes in Phoenix in July 2018, was extradited back to New Mexico, and was held behind bars at the Santa Fe County Detention Center. In September 2019, Pope was released because prosecutors violated evidence rules; his defense attorney argued that he never received a search warrant affidavit used to gather the digital evidence presented in the case. However, due to a warrant for Pope in Washington state, in October 2019, the judge reversed the decision and ruled that Pope remain behind bars.
In September 2020, a New Mexico jury found Pope guilty of rape and voyeurism. Pope was sentenced to four years in prison. He was also charged with raping two women in Seattle; prosecution of the Washington cases began moving forward in the summer of 2022.
In 2021, Pope’s attorneys argued that his convictions should be overturned, claiming the evidence did not support the convictions. Pope also says he should have been granted a change of venue and that being convicted of rape and voyeurism violated his protections against double jeopardy – which protects defendants from being punished multiple times for the same crime.
The New Mexico appellate court rejected Pope’s arguments, thus, upholding his convictions.
