The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Local News

November 5, 2007

Mentor found guilty Friday

Dan Nienaber

ST PETER — During his trial this week, Daryl Lange sat nearly motionless, blinking slowly and often staring at the top of the table in front of him as a prosecutor and witnesses described all the horrible things he did to a boy he was mentoring.

His demeanor didn’t change Friday after a group of 11 Nicollet County jurors found him guilty of three felony counts of criminal sexual conduct with a child, a verdict that will likely result in a prison sentence.

Lange’s defense attorney, Rick Mattox, had hoped to raise questions about the role investigators and social workers played in the allegations a 10-year-old boy made against Lange more than a year ago. Mattox said the statement Lange gave to two detectives shortly after the boy’s allegations amounted to “Minnesota speak,” not an admission to sexually molesting the boy numerous times.

When Lange acknowledged the detective’s accusations of anal and oral sex, he was simply avoiding confrontation, Mattox said. And the boy’s descriptions of the crimes to social workers and detectives, at least one of which was told while acting out graphic sexual acts with two dolls, were coerced Mattox argued.

Assistant Nicollet County Attorney Michelle Zehnder Fischer presented a different view. It was a view the jury followed.

“Minnesota speak is, ‘ya, you know, you betcha,’” Fischer said. “Minnesota speak isn’t admitting to oral sex with a child entrusted in your care.”

After being partnered with Lange in the YMCA’s Big Brother program for four years, the boy brought a letter to his mother saying, “He touches me in the wrong way. Please let me keep Daryl.” It was a message Fischer focused on in both her opening and closing arguments.

The boy’s parents responded by taking their son to the Mankato Police Department to make a report. They told a detective there they didn’t want to file a complaint in Nicollet County because Lange had told them he was a close relative of Sheriff Dave Lange. It was a claim that turned out to be false. Fischer also focused on that during the trial, saying Daryl Lange used it to create the same fear for his victim’s parents as he had for his victim.

At one point Dave Lange took the stand and testified that he and Daryl Lange were actually very distant relatives. Fischer used that to challenge Daryl Lange’s credibility during her closing arguments Friday.

“Daryl Lange claimed he was a close relative of the sheriff,” she said. “We know, based on the evidence in the case, that isn’t true. The defendant is a distant relative and a passing acquaintance at best.”

After the verdict, Lange was told he couldn’t leave the courtroom area because he was in the custody of the Nicollet County Sheriff’s Department. Lange posted a $250,000 bail for his release after he was arrested and charged in June 2006.

He also was released after being found guilty of unrelated charges of spying on boys using a bathroom at a private school in Nicollet, where he was employed as a custodian.

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