Climber Charles Barrett Sentenced to Life in Prison for Rape

Early today, accomplished California climber and guidebook author Charles Barrett was sentenced to life in prison for the rape of a woman in Yosemite National Park. The ruling, made by U.S. District Court Judge John A. Mendez, comes after a weeklong February trial in which a jury found Barrett guilty of two counts of aggravated sexual abuse and one count of abusive sexual contact. All of the case’s proceedings were held in Sacramento.

“Barrett’s long history of sexual violence supports the imposition of a life sentence,” said U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert in statement released shortly after the sentencing. “He used his status as a prominent climber to assault women in the rock-climbing community, and when his victims began to tell, Barrett responded by lashing out publicly with threats and intimidation. This case is a testament to the courage of the victims who reported these crimes.”

When given the opportunity at today’s hearing, Barrett declined to make a statement to the court before his sentencing was delivered.

Barrett, 40, has been in federal custody since August 2022, when he was arrested for sexually assaulting a fellow climber identified as K.G. in court documents. K.G. testified during the trial that she initially connected with Barrett through Instagram in 2016, when he offered her advice on a weekend hiking trip she was planning in Yosemite.

After completing a solo day hike on August 13, 2016, K.G. met Barrett and his friends in Tuolumne Meadows, where he was working for a Yosemite concessionaire and living in park housing. She agreed to accompany Barrett to watch a meteor shower, but instead of rejoining the group of friends as she had expected, Barrett led K.G. into a remote forested area, where he pushed her to the ground and strangled her. According to a May 15 sentencing memorandum filed by the prosecution, Barrett “forcibly raped” K.G. that night and then again the next day in an employee-housing shower. She was 19 years old at the time.

Barrett’s February trial not only involved testimony from K.G. but also from three other female climbers who had been sexually assaulted by him. These assaults were not charged by federal authorities because they occurred on lands outside federal jurisdiction, but they were introduced at the trial to demonstrate Barrett’s pattern of predatory behavior.

An extensive investigation that I wrote for Outside, published shortly before the trial, detailed how Barrett stalked and harassed his victims, causing them to fear for their lives. My story also chronicled how Barrett used his notoriety in the climbing community, which was bolstered by his relationships with well-known professional climbers, to prey on women and mask his criminal behavior.

Over a 14-year period, nine protection or restraining orders were filed against Barrett for incidents that involved the harassment or assault of at least six women; these included death threats, trolling on Instagram, and impersonating a police officer. Since Barrett’s conviction, two additional female victims have been named in court documents.

“Barrett’s long history of sexual violence supports the imposition of a life sentence,” said U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert in statement released shortly after the sentencing. “…This case is a testament to the courage of the victims who reported these crimes.”

In K.G.’s victim-impact statement—submitted to the court before sentencing—she described in graphic detail what she experienced during the assault, when Barrett not only raped her but strangled her to the point that she had trouble breathing. “I realized he wouldn’t hesitate to choke me to death if he decided it was in his best interest,” she wrote. “I could feel it in his grip—that he would not only kill someone, but he would do it with his bare hands.”

The prosecution’s sentencing memorandum also describes how J.V., another female climber who testified at the trial, was “strangled and raped” by Barrett “on the first night she met him.”

Data on men who assault women show that strangulation is a primary indicator of intent to kill, increasing the victim’s chances of death by more than 750 percent.

A legally mandated presentencing investigation conducted by a federal parole officer, which involved interviews with Barrett and a full tally of his criminal history, advised the court that, based on federal guidelines, Barrett should receive a sentence of 40 years. In the prosecution’s sentencing memorandum, however, attorneys petitioned for a life term, stating that Barrett was “incapable of acknowledging wrongdoing,” and that incarceration would be the only way to protect his victims’ safety.

A supplemental May 28 memorandum from the prosecution described recorded calls Barrett made from jail during the past several weeks that showed “a mentality of victimhood that cannot be rehabilitated.” In conversations with family members, Barrett said his case was the result of a “National Park Service conspiracy” and that “they have it out for me.” As a result, he said, he feared for his life. He also stated in the calls that he was writing a book about his experience, which would include claims that he’s a victim of the #MeToo movement. During a May 13 call to an uncle, Barrett described the trial’s testimony as “random girls saying whatever they wanted.”

Barrett’s two public defenders, Timothy Hennessy and David Torres, petitioned the court in a May 7 sentencing memorandum, asking that Barrett not serve more than 15 years. After today’s hearing, Torres told Outside that they plan to pursue an appeal.

While Barrett was convicted on sexual assault charges, the primary fear expressed by his victims was that he would eventually carry out his threats to kill them.

“The trauma of being raped is extensive, as is the re-traumatization of being a victim in a rape case,” K.G. wrote in her statement. “Both are secondary to living under the threat of murder.” She added that the threat “was so alarming and foreign to those around me that I hid the central conflict of my life from almost everyone.”

In another victim statement written for the court, Stephanie Forté, who was sexually assaulted by Barrett in 2010, detailed how he terrorized her for five years. Barrett’s campaign of revenge against Forté began in 2017 after she privately petitioned management at her Las Vegas climbing gym to ban Barrett in order to protect the safety of women at the facility. Like K.G., Forté found little support from a disbelieving climbing community or a criminal justice system that seemed to downplay the danger Barrett posed to his victims.

According to court records, Barrett told a male climber friend in 2018 that he planned to kill Forté. The friend did not report this threat to police; he later told National Park Service investigators that he didn’t think Barrett was serious. But in January 2022, when Barrett announced to staff at the hospital in the nearby town of Mammoth Lakes that he wanted to kill Forté, he was arrested by Mammoth Lakes police on two felony counts: stalking and making criminal threats. He was then released on bond the next day and continued to harass Forté, according to court records.

In her statement, Forté described the financial and health impacts caused by Barrett’s violent and ongoing threats on social media. “He crafted a narrative of being my victim,” she stated. “He told his followers I was stalking him. I wasn’t safe anywhere because the internet and Mr. Barrett were everywhere.”

Meanwhile, the Mono County deputy district attorney handling her case struck a plea deal with Barrett and reduced the two felony charges to a single misdemeanor count of threatening with intent to terrorize. The stalking charge was dismissed.

“I realized he wouldn’t hesitate to choke me to death if he decided it was in his best interest,” the victim identified as K.G. wrote in a pre-sentencing statement. “I could feel it in his grip—that he would not only kill someone, but he would do it with his bare hands.”

In a conversation following the February trial, Forté told me that the Mono County District Attorney’s office never investigated her case by interviewing witnesses. And she was not informed of the plea deal with Barrett until nine days after it was finalized; nor did the DA’s office facilitate restitution as required by Marsy’s Law, which protects victims’ rights. Additionally, when Forté was granted a protective order against Barrett following the January 2022 death threat, she said Mono County refused to include online harassment as part of the order.

Bonnie Hedlund, who was assaulted by Barrett in front of witnesses at a popular California climbing area in 2008, had a similar experience with the state’s justice system in Inyo County. In her victim-impact statement submitted to the court for the recent Yosemite case, Hedlund described how Barrett had been charged with felony domestic violence for the attack against her. But she was informed by the Inyo County victim’s advocate that the district attorney planned to reduce the charge to a misdemeanor. Hedlund quickly drove four hours from her home to the DA’s office to demand that they not reduce the charge, because doing so would threaten her safety. She was successful, but, according to her statement, she was also “unnecessarily demeaned.”

“The Inyo County DA’s staff said disturbing things to me,” Hedlund wrote. “They included: ‘Well, I heard he is a great athlete.’ ‘He is a great climber.’ And ‘If you are so afraid [of him], then why are you here?’”

No court documents had been filed by the defense at press time to reveal what the arguments for an appeal might be. However, the defense will not be able to employ the same legal strategy used by attorneys for Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, whose 2020 rape conviction was overturned in February by the New York Court of Appeals, on the grounds that testimony from other victims interfered with a fair trial. A foundational strategy used in prosecuting Barrett’s case was Federal Rule 413, which allows the testimony of uncharged victims in sexual assault crimes. The rule applies to all federal sexual-assault cases and is also allowed in 16 states. But it is currently not codified in New York state law.

In a statement released shortly after today’s hearing, Yosemite National Park superintendent Cicely Muldoon said Barrett’s life sentence “sends a clear message about the consequences of this criminal behavior.” She also noted that “it makes Yosemite a safer place for the climbing community, park visitors and our employees.”

As for Barrett’s victims, who testified at his trial, several told me they hoped their speaking up about what they experienced would help prevent a future serial predator from being able to embed himself in the climbing community the way Barrett did. For these women, the life sentence is a hard-won and bittersweet victory.

“The life sentence is a relief,” Forté said after today’s hearing. “But it does not undo the damage Barrett caused. The life I’d built crumbled under the weight of years spent living in fear of being killed while people looked away. I hope both the local jurisdictions that failed his victims and the climbing community will see this case as an impetus for change.”