Union County jury convicts La Grande man on sex abuse charges

A Union County Circuit Court jury convicted Walker Adam Hackett of three sex-abuse-related charges after a multi-day trial that began June 23. The La Grande man was found guilty of Sexual Abuse in the Second Degree, Contributing to the Sexual Delinquency of a Minor and Sexual Misconduct, while jurors acquitted him of Rape in the First Degree and Sexual Abuse in the First Degree. Sentencing was set for Aug. 7.

Hackett’s case began more than two years earlier, when a 16-year-old girl told La Grande police that he raped her after they met downtown in La Grande on June 3, 2023. Police arrested Hackett on Aug. 12, 2024, after investigators said DNA evidence played a major role in building the case from the original report. He pleaded not guilty to all five charges at a Sept. 10, 2024 hearing and was released on a $3,000 security deposit with orders to stay away from the reporting party, her family and her high school.

The verdict returns the case to the same local court system that handled the arrest, the plea and the trial, giving the reporting party and the broader community a formal resolution after a case that moved slowly through the county process. It also shows how sex-abuse prosecutions in Union County can stretch across years when investigators rely on witness statements, forensic evidence and grand-jury or trial preparation before a case reaches jurors.

Hackett’s name was already familiar to many in La Grande because of the July 5, 2023 crane incident at the Grande Ronde Hospital construction site, when police spent nearly six hours negotiating with him before he attempted suicide. That earlier crisis unfolded during a $72.5 million hospital expansion project involving a 130-foot tower crane, but the criminal verdict stands apart from that public spectacle and centers on the charges brought through Union County courts.

Under Oregon law, Sexual Misconduct is a Class C misdemeanor, while Rape in the First Degree is a Class A felony. The split verdict leaves the most serious count unproven before the jury, but it also marks a clear conviction on the other charges as the case moves toward August sentencing in Union County Circuit Court.