Attempted rape trial under way

• Testimony will begin Tuesday in the trial of a Muncie man accused of assaulting a woman in her home.
• Santiago Valdez, 59, is charged with attempted rape, criminal confinement and two other crimes.
• Valdez’s public defender will present an insanity defense.
• Valdez has repeatedly maintained local authorities are trying to kill him with electronic rays.

MUNCIE – After more than three years, Santiago Valdez this week will finally get his day — or maybe several days — in court.

A Delaware Circuit Court 2 jury was selected Monday for the trial of Valdez, accused of attacking a female acquaintance in her southside home in April 2012.

Opening arguments in the trial of the 59-year-old Muncie man — charged with attempted rape, criminal confinement, intimidation and battery — are set to begin at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday.

Public defender Joel Wieneke will try to persuade jurors his client is not guilty by reason of insanity. In January, the Indiana Court of Appeals upheld Judge Kimberly Dowling’s ruling that Valdez is not competent to act as his own attorney.

Mental health professionals who examined the former professional boxer — knocked out by Thomas “the Hitman” Hearns in a nationally televised bout in 1980 — have diagnosed him as suffering from schizophrenia, but found him competent to stand trial.

In hundreds of hand-written documents, Valdez has maintained local authorities are conspiring to kill him by damaging his internal organs with electronic rays. In its ruling, the appeals court noted he had “on multiple occasions offered (the judge) food bags containing his excrement, which he asserted would reveal evidence of his subjection to torture.”

Valdez has also reported being tormented by voices coming from the heating vents in the jail.

In 1993, the Muncie man was convicted of raping a 63-year-old Bloomington woman. He insisted on acting as his own attorney in that Monroe County case, but then refused to attend his trial.

Prosecutors Zach Craig and Eric Hoffman will present the state’s case against Valdez. The most serious charge against him is a Class B felony carrying up to 20 years in prison.

Contact news reporter Douglas Walker at (765) 213-5851. You can also follow him on Twitter @DouglasWalkerSP.