Moorcroft Man’s Child Sex Trial Delayed Because Of New Sex Crime Charge In Nebraska

A Moorcroft man’s child sex abuse trial was set to start this month, but it’s being delayed for the foreseeable future – as he’s now facing another sex charge in Nebraska, court documents say.

Charles "Chuck" Dean Massie, 64, was set for an Oct. 27 trial in Crook County District Court, facing claims that he molested multiple female children while at his church in Moorcroft.

But he was arrested in Dickinson, North Dakota, to await extradition for a charge out of Douglas County, Nebraska, according to an Oct. 9 filing by District Court Judge Stuart Healy III and to other court documents. 

The evidentiary affidavit for Massie’s Nebraska case is sealed, a Douglas County Court attendant told Cowboy State Daily on Friday. 

But the charging document, filed Sept. 25 and sent to Cowboy State Daily on Thursday, says Massie subjected a child between the ages of 12 and 16 to “sexual penetration” in the summer of 2022.

Massie would have been 61 at that time, having been born in April, the document indicates.

The charge, first-degree sexual assault of a child, is punishable by between 20 years and life in prison.

Now there are “ambiguities surrounding when (Massie) will be available for trial in this matter,” wrote Healy in his order.

The judge noted that both the prosecutor, Crook County Deputy Attorney DaNece Day, and the defense attorney, Joshua Taylor, had consented to the rescheduling of the trial.

In May…

Day originally charged Massie on May 27 with four counts of second-degree sexual abuse and one count of sexual battery after Massie confessed to a counselor that he’d been sexually inappropriate with young girls, according to court documents and earlier statements by the Moorcroft Police Department.

He confessed to a counselor that “I’m the terrible one,” says the case affidavit.

Day added five more charges when more girls came forward, court documents say.

Massie pleaded not guilty to all nine counts in July.

Many of the claims in the affidavit say Massie was touching girls at his church in Moorcroft, the Old Apostolic Lutheran Church.

Brother, Same Church Denomination

Massie’s alleged confession to his counselor came about five months after his brother, Clint Franklin Massie, pleaded guilty to similar crimes in Duluth, Minnesota. The girls who came forward in Clint Franklin Massie’s case were about the same ages as the ones Chuck Massie is accused of fondling, and the church denomination was the same, court documents show. 

Moorcroft Police Department Officer Trayton Dawson investigated Chuck Massie’s Wyoming case.

Dawson heard reports of Massie touching at least four girls inappropriately, sometimes through their clothing and sometimes under their underwear; penetrating some with his fingers, Dawson’s evidentiary affidavit alleges. 

Police Chief Bill Bryant, Officer Kendall Lossing and Casper-based Children’s Advocacy Project forensic interviewer Cheri Frimml also contributed to the investigation, says the document. 

‘Why Does It Have To Be Me?’

Dawson kept investigating. 

On May 19, he contacted two females to tell them that he’d heard their family had been victimized, and to ask if Massie had taken any sexual liberties with them, says the document. 

Both females said no, but Massie had touched their sister, reportedly. 

The sister, now a teenager, agreed to speak with Frimml at the Children’s Advocacy Project in Casper on June 12. She told Frimml that when she was about 7 or 8, Massie gave her candy in church then “stuck his hands in her pants,” the affidavit relates from that interview. 

She’d get up from her seat in church, go to the bathroom and cry, the girl reportedly told Frimml. 

“Why does it have to be me?” she asked herself, according to Dawson’s account of that interview.

The document says the girl also detailed incidents where Massie touched her at his business, a Moorcroft bowling alley.  

On May 27, a local father called Bryant to say his daughter had reported to her parents about three years prior (at age 11) that Massie had kissed her during a “girls’ night” style sleepover that had happened at his home when she was 9. 

His wife was out of town and he invited the girl to sleep in his bed, but she stayed near the other girls and avoided him “at all costs,” the girl reportedly told Frimml during her own June 9 interview in Casper. 

Church Statement

A spokesman for the Old Apostolic Lutheran Church of Moorcroft, where many — but not all — of the alleged sex crimes are reported to have happened, told Cowboy State Daily in July that the church has been working with authorities during this “sorrowful and troubling time for everyone in the congregation and also the local community.” 

“We are continuing to pray for all those involved,” the spokesman wrote in an email in June. 

The Old Apostolic Lutheran Church has guidelines that the congregation and church government “earnestly endeavor to follow for the prevention of violence, harassment and sexual abuse; and to help all those involved when an incident has occurred,” the statement says. 

The spokesman wrote that the church respects the law and expertise of the authorities, and recognizes that their services are available to help people. 

“Again, we want to emphasize our confidence in the social and judicial authorities and the help that health care professionals, the justice system, and the law enforcement can give,” says the statement. “We encourage all members of the congregation, like all citizens, to use these functions. Again, our sincere thoughts and prayers remain with all who are affected by such matters within our community.”

Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.