Silver Valley man charged with multiple sex crimes

WALLACE — A 27-year-old Woodland Park man was recently charged numerous sexual assault charges including rape.

Adam Scott Henry was arrested on March 30, and was initially charged with 10 counts of lewd conduct with child under 16, one count of sexual abuse of a child, and one count of rape.

The victim, a juvenile, alleged several different encounters while staying with Henry, a family member.

The charges stemmed from several incidents in May 2021, and it only came to light after it was noticed by the victim’s immediate family that they were behaving strangely with their siblings.

The family was questioned by law enforcement, where it was alleged that the victim had sexual encounters with Henry nearly a year prior when the victim was staying with him during a tumultuous time for the victim’s family.

According to the redacted police report, after being questioned by the law enforcement, Henry initially denied any wrongdoing — stating that nothing had ever happened between him and the victim, but that there were times that could be misconstrued as inappropriate.

After further questioning it was then alleged that while nothing had happened, Henry stated that the victim threatened to blackmail him by saying that he would tell authorities that something happened if Henry didn’t let him play video games.

Henry came into the Shoshone County Sheriff’s Office a week later where he sat down with two deputies for a further interview.

During the interview, a visibly nervous Henry once again gave his account of the time period in question, however it was noted by the deputies that his story changed and contradicted itself before Henry finally admitted to engaging in oral and anal sex with the victim.

According to the police report, after his confession, Henry stated, “I feel like a huge weight just came off my shoulders by telling somebody the truth.”

Henry was immediately taken into custody by the SCSO.

According to the affidavit, the investigating deputies felt like this particular interview was one of the more disturbing discussions that they had ever handled — including others of a similar nature.

“Henry showed no remorse for any of the sexual contact that he had with (the victim) and commonly shifted the blame of the sexual contact back onto (the victim),” the report from the deputy read. “Henry was forthcoming with information and outlined graphic details of his sexual relationship with (the victim).”

All of Henry’s charges carry substantial penalties, each lewd conduct charge carries a maxim of life, as does the rape charge, the abuse charge carries a maximum of 25 years in prison.

Earlier this week, Henry’s public defender ordered a competency evaluation for Henry, who has a cognitive disability and reportedly is the mental age of an 11-year-old according to statements in the affidavit.

According to the Shoshone County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, they will wait on the results of the evaluation before proceeding.

Should Henry fail the competency evaluation, due to Idaho not having a competency defense the charges against Henry will stick but any sentence potentially incurred by them would land him in a state mental facility as opposed to state prison.