Charges dismissed against man accused of raping 11-year-old girl in Bemidji

The Beltrami County Attorney said Tuesday that he is dismissing charges against a 23-year-old man after DNA evidence excluded him from the rape of an 11-year-old girl in Bemidji last year.

“You know something happened to that little girl,” County Attorney David Hanson said in a phone call Tuesday shortly after announcing the dismissal. “We just can’t charge it.”

Oscar Luna, 23, remains in custody on an active warrant out of Hennepin County for a third-degree DWI from March of last year. The first-degree criminal sexual conduct case will be dismissed and he will be transferred to the jail in downtown Minneapolis.

Hanson said his office spoke to the girl’s mom and dad before the dismissal announcement Tuesday, adding that her parents “were of course upset at the system and the process.”

It was a case that generated outrage and heartache for the young girl. Many also decried the fact that a dozen men located at the Bemidji home where Luna was arrested were not U.S. citizens.

Luna is a U.S. citizen born in McAllen, Texas. He moved to Minnesota when he was 16 for work and at the time of his arrest he was a roofer. His public defender Steve Bergeson said in a phone interview Tuesday that his client intends to plead guilty to a third-degree meth possession charge stemming from when authorities executed a search warrant after the reported sexual assault.

“I feel sorry for the young girl,” Bergeson said. “I hope they find the person. But it wasn’t Oscar Luna and it wasn’t any of the men who were living there and working in the community. It’s just tragedy.”

A double tragedy at that, Bergeson said, for Luna who sat in jail for 96 days and for the girl, “a Native American child who is falling trough the cracks, living on people’s couches ... our country is too rich to have somebody her age... living with no support.”

He agreed with Hanson that something happened to her, but Bergeson said he doesn’t believe it happened at the Bemidji residence where the assault allegedly occurred Sept. 26, 2023.

Hanson said the girl went to the Sanford emergency room and “several salacious details emerged from the investigation” led by Bemidji police and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA). The girl reported being forced into a car with a bag over her head; she said she was tied up in a yellow house where she was sexually assaulted by two men.

A nurse did an exam and abrasions were consistent with a sexual assault. The BCA found four separate DNA profiles on the waistband of her underwear, one of which matched her own, the rest were unknown male DNA profiles.

The U.S. Border Patrol got involved and all of the men besides Luna were handed over to federal authorities. None were charged. But Hanson said in the news release that the men provided DNA samples and “none of their DNA was found on the young girl.”

Hanson added that evidence and follow-up statements from witnesses tended to not corroborate the girl’s statement. But, he said, “to be clear, there is little doubt that the young girl was sexually assaulted.”

There is no evidence to implicate Luna for the sexual assault, he added, and no suspects are currently identified to file charges at this time. The case remains under investigation.

Hanson thanked the nurses, law enforcement officers and prosecutors involved thus far.

“This case involves a little girl who experienced an unthinkable trauma, and for the prosecution to conclude with an outcome of no charges is itself another trauma — both for the victim and for all of the individuals who have put their heart and souls into this case,” he said.