A German woman and former Columbia Falls High School exchange student has been charged with making false rape and assault accusations against her 2009 prom date.

Flathead County District Court held its first hearing on Thursday, May 21, in the case of Christina Nadine Nelson, 24, although criminal charges were filed 16 months ago.

Nelson, also known as Christina Nadine Mark, faces two counts of tampering with or fabricating physical evidence and one count of making a false claim to a public agency, all felonies. She faces similar charges in an ongoing Yellowstone County case.

The charges in both Flathead and Yellowstone counties were brought by Mary Cochenour, an assistant attorney general for Montana. In Flathead County court documents, Cochenour outlines evidence of a string of alleged false accusations. They allege that Nelson pursued charges against three men between 2009 and 2012.

According to court documents, Nelson made her first accusation in 2009 while she was a foreign exchange student at Columbia Falls. 

Nelson accused her prom date of raping her before attending prom on April 4, 2009. She said the boy had also cut her with a knife during the incident.

She made a medical report three days after the alleged incident at Kalispell Regional Medical Center, according to the prosecutor’s account.

Nelson later reported the incident to police. The accused boy denied the allegations.

While the investigation was ongoing, Nelson contacted the Flathead County Victim’s Advocate program and said that she wanted to drop the charges against her prom date. She told a Flathead County Sheriff’s deputy in May 2009 that she would not be able to testify against the boy but did not recant her accusation.

Nelson also filed a claim with the Crime Victim’s Compensation Program for $8,100 reimbursement for medical bills related to the alleged assault and rape. The claim was denied.

The accused prom date was expelled from Columbia Falls High School. According to court documents, he moved out of state.

The investigation was dropped until 2012 when a Billings police detective looked into Nelson’s history. This came in August that year when Nelson went to a Billings clinic and accused another ex-boyfriend of rape.

She had also accused a third ex-boyfriend of rape in 2009. Between the three young men, she underwent five sexual assault exams.

In court documents, Cochenour wrote that the five sex-assault kits point to a “motive or pattern of accusing young men” of rape.

Police investigations revealed evidence that Nelson could have made false accusations in the Billings cases. Charges were brought in Yellowstone County in December 2012.

Those charges were dismissed the following July. The Montana Supreme Court picked up an appeal by prosecutors and in May 2014, it reversed the lower court’s decision and turned it back to Yellowstone County.

In the Flathead County case, Nelson did not appear for her initial appearance on May 21. She was scheduled to appear by telephone.

Cochenour said Friday that Nelson’s whereabouts aren’t known, even by her own attorney. Nelson was supposed to appear last week in Yellowstone County as well but didn’t show.

Nelson has $100,000 arrest warrants against her in both Yellowstone and Flathead counties.

“My thought is that she’s in Europe,” Cochenour said.

A court document from January indicates that she was thought to be in Austria at that time. Other documents indicate that she has a husband in Montana.

No further court hearing has been set at this time. The trial will remain suspended until Nelson is located.

Reporter Matt Hudson may be reached at 758-4459 or by email at mhudson@dailyinterlake.com.