Man who held himself out as Native American activist sentenced to 46 years for serial rapes

SEATTLE (AP) — A man who held himself out as a Native American activist was sentenced Wednesday to 46 years in prison for drugging and raping women in a case that inspired calls for changes in Washington state law to prohibit defendants who represent themselves from directly questioning their accusers.

Redwolf Pope, who had apartments in Seattle and Santa Fe, New Mexico, was arrested in 2018 after guests at his Seattle apartment gave police videos from his iPad that showed him raping several women who appeared to be unconscious, court documents said. Police also found a secret camera in Pope’s bathroom that was used to capture video of women in the shower.

“I’ve had the horror of witnessing the scale of violence Pope inflicted on multiple women over many years. It will never leave me,” Erica Elan, a survivor who discovered the hidden cameras and video evidence of the crimes, said in a news release.

The Associated Press generally does not identify victims of sexual abuse except in cases where they publicly identify themselves or share their stories openly.

Pope, 49, was found guilty of rape and voyeurism by a Santa Fe jury in 2020. He was sentenced to four years in prison, with credit for over two years already served. Pope claimed that encounter was consensual.

After his release from prison, he was extradited to Washington state to face charges from incidents that occurred in 2016 and 2017. He pleaded not guilty and represented himself during his September trial, cross-examining one of his victims for multiple days.

The jury found him guilty on Sept. 3, 2025.

Survivors have called on the Washington State Legislature to change laws that allow defendants who represent themselves to directly cross-examine their victims. They want lawmakers to update the Crime Victim Bill of Rights to provide an alternative to cross-examination of victims by perpetrators serving as their own lawyer.

They want judges to have the ability to allow an accuser to be cross-examined by a court-appointed designee rather than by a self-represented defendant.

“We must refine the outdated systems that cause further harm to survivors in their pursuit of justice,” Elan said.

Pope, who has claimed Western Shoshone and Tlingit heritage, is an activist who has appeared as a spokesperson for the Seattle-based United Indians of All Tribes Foundation. His LinkedIn page lists him as an attorney who has worked for the Tulalip Tribal Court for over a decade.

But his heritage and resume came under scrutiny after his arrest. While he received a law degree from Seattle University, the Washington State Bar Association previously confirmed he was not a licensed lawyer, and the Tulalip Tribes said he never worked as an attorney there.

Several tribes with Tlingit and Shoshone members also have said they’ve found no record of Pope’s enrollment, though it’s unclear whether he has claimed membership to any particular tribe.

Abigail Echo-Hawk, the executive vice president of the Seattle Indian Health Board and an advocate for Native women’s rights, has said Pope created a “false identity and posed as a Native man to infiltrate Native communities and prey upon our Indigenous women.”

Echo-Hawk, who is a national leader in the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women & Girls crisis and advocate for victims of sexual violence, said Pope not only inflicted harm until he was caught, but “was allowed to take advantage of our legal system and continue to traumatize his victims for years after.”