Baker County rape case advances with fresh indictment, failed bail bid

Baker County’s case against Eric Vincent Swanlund moved deeper into the courtroom on Friday, May 1, as a judge kept his $600,000 bail in place, rejected a bid to remove him from the case, and appointed William Thomson to represent the defendant.

That hearing came two days after a grand jury returned a 38-count indictment that widened the case beyond the district attorney’s initial 33 charges. The new filing added four counts of using a child in a display of sexually explicit conduct, pushing the case into a more serious sentencing category and increasing the prison exposure if prosecutors prove the allegations at trial.

Swanlund was arrested by Baker City police on April 23 at about 4:15 p.m. and booked into the Baker County Jail after the Baker County Sheriff’s Office began investigating in March 2026. Deputies said the case started with a report of child sexual abuse and later determined the abuse had been ongoing for nearly two years without being reported. One report said investigators believed there could be more victims and asked anyone with information to contact Baker County Sheriff’s Office Dispatch.

Prosecutors have alleged repeated sexual abuse of a teenage girl whom Swanlund knew, with the conduct reportedly beginning when the girl was 15 and continuing through 2024 and into 2026. The indictment includes seven counts each of third-degree rape, third-degree sexual abuse, third-degree sodomy and contributing to the sexual delinquency of a minor, along with four counts of online sexual corruption of a child in the second degree, the four added display-of-sexually-explicit-conduct charges, and counts of strangulation and coercion.

The addition of the Measure 11 counts matters because Oregon treats using a child in a display of sexually explicit conduct as a mandatory-minimum felony. Measure 11 was approved by voters in 1994 and took effect April 1, 1995, and the Legislature later added that offense to the list. Oregon law defines it as using, authorizing, compelling, inducing or recording a child in sexually explicit conduct.

Judge Matt Shirtcliff, who has served as Baker County Circuit Court judge since 2019, denied the defense request to disqualify him after Swanlund’s lawyers argued he could not get a fair and impartial trial before him. The court’s refusal to lower bail or remove the judge signals that Baker County’s system is treating the case as a serious, ongoing public-safety matter, not a single isolated allegation. For a county with a single elected-judge circuit court, the ruling also sets the tone for how future major sex-crime cases involving minors may be handled as this prosecution moves toward the next pretrial phase.