| In 2009, a young woman known as K.W. became pregnant and said that 40-year-old Isaac Aryee was the child’s father.
K.W., who lived in Denver, Colorado, had met Aryee a year earlier at the church he ran out of his home in Adams County, Colorado, just north and east of Denver. He later hired her to babysit his other children.
K.W. was born in a refugee camp in Sierra Leone. Her mother died shortly after childbirth, and there were conflicting reports about what happened to her biological father. K.W.’s maternal aunt, known as S.W., adopted K.W. in 1997, and the family emigrated to Colorado in 2004. K.W. had no birth certificate, but S.W. said the girl was born in 1993, making her 15 years old at the time she became pregnant.
Aryee, who was from Ghana, was arrested in 2009 and charged with aggravated sexual assault on a child, sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust, and sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust as part of a pattern of abuse.
In an interview with a detective after his arrest, Aryee said he believed K.W. was 15 years old but that her age was not an issue because in his culture a “girl of [fifteen] is not anything bad.”
Aryee also said that S.W. had given him permission to be with K.W.
The detective said: “But I’m asking you, did you guys have sex?”
Aryee responded: “Yes.”
“Do you think you could be the father of her baby?”
“I don’t know,” Aryee said. “I don’t know. Because she confess[ed] to me more than three, four people have slept with her.”
“Would you be willing to give me a sample of your DNA? Do you know what DNA is?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
“But until I talk to my lawyer, if I can talk to my lawyer.”
The detective then asked Aryee if he was invoking his right to an attorney. Aryee did not respond directly, and the officer told him he couldn’t discuss his case unless Aryee clarified that he didn’t want an attorney. After a brief exchange, the interview ended.
Aryee’s trial began in September 2011. By then, the case had been transferred to Adams County, but prosecutors from the Denver County District Attorney’s Office were appointed to represent the state. A DNA test had confirmed Aryee’s paternity of K.W.’s child, and the key issue at trial was K.W.’s age.
K.W. testified about her relationship with Aryee and said she was born on June 6, 1993. S.W. testified that she was present at K.W.’s birth on that same date. S.W.’s ex-husband, F.W., testified that when he first met K.W. in 1997, the child acted like she was 4 years old. The doctor who treated K.W. during her pregnancy testified that her demeanor and behavior were consistent with a girl who was 16 years old or a “little younger.”
In addition, a school-resource officer who interviewed K.W. also testified that her behavior was consistent with other 15- or 16-year-old children.
The jury convicted Aryee on the sexual-assault charges, and he was sentenced on September 26, 2011, to 30 years to life in prison.
Aryee appealed, arguing that his statement to the police should have been suppressed and that there was insufficient evidence to support a conviction. A three-judge panel of the Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction on July 31, 2014. It said there was sufficient evidence and that Aryee “did not make an unambiguous and unequivocal request for counsel.”
In 2018, Aryee hired an attorney in Ghana and an investigator in Sierra Leone to locate K.W.’s birth records. The investigator found a purported birth certificate that listed K.W.’s year of birth as 1989, making her 19 years old in 2008.
Aryee moved for a new trial. A judge vacated his conviction in June 2019, ruling that the birth certificate had the potential to produce an acquittal and undermined the prosecution’s case.
He was released from prison on October 1, 2019. In July 2020, the state dismissed the case, citing the difficulties in obtaining evidence from Sierra Leone, in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In February 2021, Aryee filed a claim for state compensation. A judge dismissed the claim in September 2023 after ruling that K.W.’s birth certificate did not meet the standards for authenticity or admissibility under Colorado’s rules of evidence.
– Ken Otterbourg
|