He had won the "Great Chief" award, the highest honor
a local business leader can receive from the Chamber of Commerce. A
nominating letter for the award described him as "the epitome of the
reason we all want to live in the Kalispell area."
Dasen was an
energetic force in the construction of a hospital, a ski resort and a
large hotel that established this northwest Montana town of 15,000 as a
player in the convention business of the Rocky Mountain West. He was
impressively energetic, too, in charitable and social causes, serving
as a church elder, helping teenagers finish high school and
volunteering his time to Christian Financial Counseling, which helped
people manage debts.
Since his arrest in February in a sting operation at
a cut-rate local motel, police have unearthed a side of Dasen's life
that, while impressively energetic, is decidedly less civic-minded.
Dasen, 62, who is married with grown children and
several grandchildren, has allegedly told police that over the past
decade he paid more than $1 million to have sex with a large number of
young women, many of whom were in legal trouble, addicted to drugs and
in debt to him, according to court documents.
When police asked Dasen how many of these women there had been, he said there had been too many to count.
Dasen apparently lost count, too, police say, of how much money he paid all these women.
Investigators counting his checks -- he paid by
check, in amounts of $1,000 to $6,000 per encounter, sometimes as much
as $130,000 a month -- now estimate that Dasen spent at least $5
million, said Charles Harball, the city attorney.
"He pretty much single-handedly funded the
methamphetamine trade here in Kalispell for a number of years," Harball
said, as women used the money Dasen paid them to pay for their habits.
Since Dasen's arrest the flow of money to local
methamphetamine users seems to have dried up, Harball said, adding that
there has been a "flood of petty crime from addicts seeking cash for
their habit."
Police continue to investigate where Dasen's money came from.
"He had access to a lot of funds from a lot of
different sources, and there is really no accounting for any of it,"
Harball said.
The state Department of Public Health and Human
Services is also trying to find out what Dasen, as a court-appointed
conservator, did with $500,000 awarded in a product-liability
settlement for the long-term care of a severely brain-damaged child.
In an affidavit filed last month in the county court
overseeing the conservatorship, a state social worker said the money
under Dasen's control disappeared with "no formal accounting" between
1995 and 2000. Since then, the child, having turned up in the local
hospital with severe malnutrition and infected ulcers on his backside,
has become a ward of the state.
So far, Dasen has been charged with rape for
allegedly paying a 15-year-old girl for sex. The age of consent in
Montana is 16. He has also been charged with two felony counts of
promoting prostitution. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges,
and his attorney, George Best, declined to comment on any aspect of the
case.
A trial on the rape and prostitution charges is
scheduled for early next year, and law enforcement officials say that
they are continuing an investigation into any accounting and tax
irregularities concerning Dasen.
Then there is the matter of Dasen's DNA, which the
state crime lab says was detected on a semen-stained bedspread in Room
233 of the Kalispell Motel 6 -- the room in which Darlene Wilcock, 26,
was found strangled in April of last year. No one has been arrested in
her death.
A law enforcement official familiar with the woman's
autopsy report said that semen from two men was found on her body,
neither of them Dasen.
The discovery of Dasen's semen at the crime scene,
this official said, may simply be a coincidence, the kind of thing that
can happen to a man who often has sex in motel rooms where bedspreads
are rarely washed. A number of women have told police that they had sex
with Dasen in the Motel 6.
Many of the women Dasen allegedly paid for sex met
him when they came to Christian Financial Counseling for help in
consolidating and managing their debts. Dasen ran the nonprofit
organization and also owns a private finance firm, Budget Finance.
Detectives have interviewed about 40 of these women,
and many of them have said that Dasen "used their indebtedness to him
to coerce them to have sex," Kalispell Police Chief Frank Garner said.
If Dasen was "not satisfied with the sexual services
that he was receiving, it was common for [him] to arrange for
repossession of vehicles that he has purchased or funded for those
females, through his finance company," according to a confidential
informant's statement to police that is quoted in court documents.
Back in February, news of Dasen's arrest astonished
many of his longtime business associates, political acquaintances and
fellow church members. Several called the police chief to complain of
overzealous law enforcement. The calls stopped, the chief said, as more
details emerged about the scale of Dasen's sexual appetites.
"Dick's dark side was done with extreme discretion,"
said Dean Jellison, a retired lawyer and GOP activist who has known
Dasen for nearly 35 years. "The news was a complete and utter shock to
the community."
Part of the shock derived from the respect that Dasen
had earned for his volunteer work as a financial counselor. Many
judges, law enforcement officials and ministers in town had referred
troubled young couples with debt problems to Dasen -- and they credit
him with having saved many marriages.
"He was incredibly benevolent," said Denise Cofer, a
local activist in the Christian Coalition and a Republican candidate in
the fall election for county commissioner. She said that Dasen was a
reliable supporter of conservative Christian causes, such as opposition
to abortion.
"If there was a need in the community, he was there," she said.
While rumors about Dasen's sexual appetites may not
have bubbled up to the level of judges, politicians and preachers
before his arrest, they apparently had percolated down to many
working-class people, especially those with debt problems.
"When my wife and I were having some problems with
money five years ago, a friend recommended that we go see Dasen," said
Steve Southland, who manages a warehouse in town. "But my friend knew
enough to warn me not to send my wife alone."
When Dasen talked to police shortly after his arrest,
he characterized his for-pay sexual activities with young women as
"helping" them, according to a detective's affidavit that summarizes
Dasen's conversation with police.
When a detective asked him to explain how he was
helping the women, the affidavit said that Dasen replied that when he
thought about it, he realized he was not helping them after all.
Dasen said, too, that he believes he has a problem,
perhaps an addiction. But he added, according to the affidavit, that he
believes he is more addicted to "helping" than to sex.
Awaiting trial, Dasen is free on $50,000 bail and staying with his wife at their vacation home in Arizona.