In Denton County shower, Wetteland performed oral sex acts on boy, according to letter
Former Texas Rangers relief pitcher John Wetteland took the witness stand at his trial on Thursday and denied that he forced a boy to perform oral sex acts on him on three occasions inside a shower in Denton County.
“Did that happen?” defense attorney Caroline 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.
Wetteland suggested a letter, in which prosecutors say the boy wrote at 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, with which Wetteland is familiar.
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 in Wetteland’s trial on three counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child in 462nd District Court in Denton County. Judge Lee Ann Breading is presiding at the trial.
“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. Wetteland is 56 and lives in Trophy Club. A back injury ended his playing career in 2000.
The defense rested its case on Thursday, and jurors will hear closing arguments on Friday.
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.
Prosecutors also presented a series of teachers and classmates who knew the victim when he was an Argyle High School student. They testified they knew him to be truthful.
The victim was 16 in 2016 when he told his mother and his mother’s partner of 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 write the letter describing the abuse.
A counselor and assistant principal reported the letter to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.
Bartonville police have said that they were contacted about the case by DFPS on Jan. 9, 2019. Bartonville is about 12 miles south of Denton.
A grand jury indicted Wetteland in 2019.
This story was originally published August 31, 2022 at 5:28 PM.
