Rhorer

PENDLETON — The man accused of brutally attacking a 16-year-old girl near Northeast Riverside Avenue and Highway 11 in Pendleton on May 29 pleaded not guilty to eight charges in the Umatilla County Circuit Court on Wednesday, June 10. 

Matthew Daniel Rhorer, 35, who Pendleton police arrested on June 2 with probable cause through forensic evidence and a physical description from a witness, is facing seven felony charges: first-degree attempted murder, first-degree assault, first-degree attempted kidnapping, first-degree attempted sodomy, coercion and two counts of unlawful use of a weapon. 

Rhorer also faces one misdemeanor charge for menacing. 

A court filing of his indictment shows Rhorer is accused of attempting to kidnap and sexually assault the 16-year-old girl, and then assaulting her with a rock and either a rope or chord.

According to a June 2 press release on the incident from the Pendleton Police Department, the girl suffered a head injury, facial fractures and lost teeth from the assault. She was initially transported to St. Anthony Hospital in Pendleton the night of May 29 before being flown to Oregon Health and Science University in Portland for emergency care. 

Oregon court records show that Rhorer previously pleaded guilty except for insanity in 2009 for attempting to kidnap and rape a woman from Umatilla. That landed him in the state hospital with a 10-year sentence — the maximum sentence allowed at the time — of treatment and supervision from the Oregon Psychiatric Security Review Board.

Court documents show Rhorer had been granted conditional release from the state hospital and was living in Umatilla County under supervision of the state until his sentence concluded in June 2018, ending his mandated supervision and treatment along with it. 

Rhorer is currently being held at the Umatilla County Jail in Pendleton on $500,000 bail. He’s scheduled to appear for a pretrial conference on June 24, and then again on July 1 to set a trial date.