Probation officer rape trial delayed

Jury selection is scheduled to continue next month in the trial of a Havre juvenile probation officer charged with raping the mother of one of the juveniles he supervised.

Stephen David Mills of Havre, born in 1965, was charged with one count of sexual intercourse without consent in June 2014. An additional charge of attempted sexual intercourse without consent was added Feb. 5.

The jury selection process began Friday and ended Monday.

According to the minute entry from Tuesday, jury selection process ended after Mills’ attorney, Jeremy Yellin, filed a motion to delay the trial due to a new witness needing to be subpoenaed. Yellin was also concerned Mills would not get a fair trial.

Judge Katherine Bidegaray of Sidney granted the motion and the jury selection process was re-scheduled for April 27 at 9 a.m.

Bidegaray is hearing the case and it is being prosecuted by a special team from the Montana attorney general’s office because of potential conflicts of interest with local prosecutors and judges.

According to court documents, Mills was arrested in the early morning of Jan. 12, 2014, after Havre police received a call from a woman who said she had been raped.

The woman told investigating officers that after she left a bar following an argument with a friend, Mills, who had also been in the bar, approached her and offered to give her a ride to her vehicle.

Instead, he drove to his residence, the woman said. Mills reportedly invited her inside, and she agreed, saying she “trusted” him and “did not think anything would happen.” Once inside, the woman told the officers, he forced her to have sex with him.

The court documents go on to say that Mills was interviewed by an officer. Mills denied that he had taken her to his residence and that he had sex with her, and told the officer that a hearing was scheduled the following week about her child, for whom he was the probation officer.

The Montana State Crime Lab analyzed samples taken during a rape examination of the woman, and samples showed that a DNA profile of one of the samples matched Mills’ DNA profile.