Donald Carl Salois Sentenced in U.S. District Court

The United States Attorney’s Office announced that during a federal court session in Great Falls, on May 20, 2013, before U.S. District Judge Sam E. Haddon, Donald Carl Salois, a 49-year-old resident of Browning, was sentenced to a term of life in prison.

Salois was sentenced after a federal district court trial in which he was found guilty of aggravated sexual abuse. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ryan G. Weldon and Laura B. Weiss prosecuted the case for the United States.

At trial, the following evidence and testimony was presented to the jury:

On February 25, 2010, Salois picked up the victim, a 51-year-old grandmother, in his vehicle along Highway 2, south of Browning, which is within the exterior boundaries of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. Salois said that he would take the victim home, but that never occurred. Instead, Salois passed the victim’s residence, stopped at a sufficiently secluded place, exited his vehicle, and brutally raped the victim.

When questioned by law enforcement, Salois admitted that he had sex with the victim but claimed the encounter was consensual and occurred in his residence, not on the side of the road. Salois also claimed that he never left his residence the night of the rape. The FBI investigated and discovered that neighbors, on the night of the rape, did not see the vehicle owned by Salois at the residence.

After the government presented testimony of 12 witnesses over the course of a day-and-a-half, which included medical professionals, law enforcement, lay witnesses, and a DNA expert, the jury convicted Salois.

Because there is no parole in the federal system, the “truth in sentencing” guidelines mandate that Salois will likely serve all of the time imposed by the court.

The investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.