The United States Attorney's Office announced that on May 24, 2011, in Billings, after a federal district court trial before Chief U.S. District Judge Richard F. Cebull, BERT TRAVIS LITTLE OWL, a 41-year-old resident of St. Xavier, was found guilty of aggravated sexual abuse. Sentencing is set for August 31, 2011. He is currently released on special conditions.

At trial, the following evidence and testimony was presented to the jury.

In March of 2010, a 25-year-old female, hereafter referred to as "L", reported to the Bureau of Indian Affairs that over a period of time in 1990-1991, when she was only 6 or 7-years-old, she had been sexually abused by LITTLE OWL while she was living in St. Xavier, which is within the exterior boundaries of the Crow Indian Reservation.

L" testified at trial that LITTLE OWL would babysit her and while he did, he sexually abused her and forced her to perform oral sex on him.

When questioned by law enforcement, LITTLE OWL at first denied but then later admitted that he had sexually abused "L" during the summer of 1991 on several occasions. In June 2010, LITTLE OWL gave a recorded statement confessing to the events in question.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Marcia K. Hurd prosecuted the case for the United States.

LITTLE OWL faces possible penalties of life in prison, a $250,000 fine and lifetime supervision.

The investigation was a cooperative effort between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

 

 

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