A riverboat captain from Tennessee remains in the Cochise County jail pending a bail hearing this week on charges he tried to influence a witness in a sexual assault case out of Sierra Vista.
Christopher M. Dunn was taken into custody Feb. 23, two weeks after being indicted by a Cochise County grand jury on two felonies – influencing a witness and tampering with a witness.
That witness is Dunn’s ex-wife, who filed a police report in 2018 in Tennessee alleging she was raped by Dunn while the two were in the process of divorcing.
DNA evidence from the Tennessee investigation provided Det. Joshua Nicola of the Sierra Vista Police Department with probable cause to arrest Dunn for allegedly raping his then-girlfriend in 2021 at a house the two shared in Sierra Vista when Dunn was in town.
Court records show Dunn, 41, learned during a January hearing in the Sierra Vista case that his ex-wife might be called as a trial witness. The influencing charge alleges he threatened the woman “with intent to influence” her testimony.
Meanwhile, the tampering charge alleges Dunn communicated “directly or indirectly” with his ex-wife in an attempt to have her “unlawfully withhold testimony, testify falsely, absent herself from an official proceeding in which she had been lawfully summoned, or evade a subpoena or summons.”
In January, Judge Timothy Dickerson released Dunn on his own recognizance pending trial in the sexual assault case. Now, Dunn is being held in custody without bail because the new indictment represents a charge of pretrial circumstances.
Dickerson will decide March 7 whether Dunn will remain in jail awaiting trial in both cases.
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