Former Texas Rangers relief pitcher John Wetteland performed oral sex on a boy on three occasions inside a shower in Denton County, according to a letter that prosecutors say the boy wrote when he was 18.
The former chief of the Argyle Independent School District Police Department read the letter to jurors on Wednesday in Wetteland’s trial on continuous sexual abuse of a young child in 462nd District Court in Denton County.
“John raped me multiple times,” according to the letter that prosecutors have said the victim wrote 12 years after the final assault.
The letter, which was intended to be sent to people connected to Wetteland but was revealed to school district officials, described Wetteland rebuffing the boy’s attempts to discuss the assaults by telephone.
It described one sexual assault per year when the boy was 4, 5 and 6 years old. The letter’s author wrote of a fogged bathroom window and a disagreement with Wetteland on the water temperature during a shower.
Wetteland’s attorneys have suggested the boy’s account is false.
If the jury finds him guilty, Wetteland faces a prison term of 25 years to life. Wetteland is 56 and lives in Trophy Club. A back injury ended his playing career in 2000.
The state rested its case on Wednesday, and the defense will call witnesses on Thursday.
The Argyle school district’s chief technology officer testified Wednesday about the circumstances under which a student’s computer use would result in an email alert to school administrators.
The district learned of the letter via an electronic system that monitors student laptop use, Greg Royer said.
On cross examination from Wetteland’s defense attorney Derek Adame, Royer testified that the district could not know who authored material that results in an alert.
“You don’t know who was at the other end of that keyboard, do you?” Adame asked.
“Correct,” Royer said.
Prosecutors also presented a series of teachers and classmates who knew the victim when he was an Argyle High School student. They testified they knew him to be truthful.
The victim was 16 in 2016 when he told his mother and his mother’s partner of sexual abuse that he said occurred between 2004 and 2006.
The victim’s mother told jurors she did not report her son’s account to police or other authorities.
But about two years later, when the boy was a senior in high school, his mother insisted he write the letter describing the abuse.
A counselor and assistant principal reported the letter to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.
Bartonville police have said that they were contacted about the case by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services on Jan. 9, 2019. Bartonville is about 12 miles south of Denton.
A grand jury indicted Wetteland in 2019.