Patient kept sex evidence

Kim Smith

Thursday, Sept. 20, 2001 | 10:35 a.m.

A mental health patient who claims her counselor sexually assaulted her kept physical evidence of the assault in a Ziploc bag for four months before giving it to police, she testified Wednesday.

She also called a personal injury attorney about the alleged rape before contacting police, the woman said during the second day in the preliminary hearing of Robert William Hough.

The hearing is expected to conclude Friday, at which time Justice of the Peace Deborah Lippis will decide if there's enough evidence to try Hough.

Hough, a former West Valley Counseling Center counselor and pastor at the International Church of Las Vegas, is accused of sexually abusing the 34-year-old woman between February 2000 and May 2000.

The woman says that she began seeing Hough shortly after she realized she had been sexually abused as a child and Hough diagnosed her as having disassociative identity disorder, or split personalities.

She said Hough engaged in sex acts with two of her personalities -- a 6-year-old named Sany and Honest, a young woman of an unknown age who was in love with Hough.

Defense attorney Michael Amador spent nearly five hours cross-examining the woman Wednesday. Much of that time was spent on getting background information about the woman for future investigative purposes.

Toward the end of the cross-examination Amador began grilling the woman about her actions both during and after the alleged assaults.

Amador asked the woman if it was true she asked Hough to perform certain acts. The woman insisted it was Honest who was in control, not her. When Amador insisted on a "yes" or "no" answer, the woman replied "Physically, my mouth said that, yes."

The woman later admitted she put an article of clothing in a Ziploc bag after having sex with Hough in May 2000. She said she did so because she wanted to be able to prove to Hough's wife what had happened.

In September 2000 she sent the bag and a secretly taped conversation between herself and Hough to Metro Police from her part-time home in Kentucky. Before that, she said, she spoke with about five psychologists and a personal injury attorney.