Defendant was convicted, after a jury trial, of sexually assaulting his seventeen-year-old daughter. 13 V.S.A. § 3252(a)(1)(C). Defendant appeals the trial court’s denial of his pretrial motions in limine, a motion for judgment of acquittal, and a motion to strike testimony. We affirm.
The issues before the Court are: (1) whether there was sufficient evidence to support a finding thаt the victim was placed in imminent fear of bodily harm; (2) whether evidence of defendant’s uncharged bad behavior — prior sexual abuse of the victim, violent and threatening bеhavior toward the victim and her fiance, and conspiring to kill them — was admissible under V.R.E. 404(b) and 403; and (3) whether a prosecution witness’s hearsay testimony regarding the victim’s purported mоtive in prosecuting the defendant, protection of her younger sister, was sufficiently prejudicial to warrant reversal.
Defendant was alleged to have had sexual intеrcourse with the victim at about noon at a motel on August 22,1986. According to the victim, defendant called her from a jobsite where he was a construction supervisor and instructed her to leave her workplace and meet him at the motel. She arrived at the motel, rented a room, and shortly thereafter was joined by defendant. The victim, аfter resisting defendant’s attempt to undress her, *413 pulled away and undressed herself. Defendant had sexual relations with her twice over a two-hour period and left. When asked why shе had left work to meet defendant at the motel, the victim stated that she was scared and that numerous death threats made by defendant over the years left her too frightened to disobey him.
I.
Fear of Imminent Harm
At trial, the evidence showed that defendant had maintained an incestuous relationship with his daughter for a period of four years, beginning when the victim was thirteen years old and continuing until the incident at the motel. Initially, the sexual assaults took place in the home, but when the victim was older, defendant began to arrange assignations at motels. According to the victim, the assaults took place approximately once a week.
On numerous occasions, defendant told the victim that failurе to consent to his advances would be severely punished. He threatened to kill her on several occasions, even showing her the gun he would use should she fail to satisfy his demands or report his actions. After the initial assault in 1981, the victim reported the incident to her school principal who contacted a social worker. After the sоcial worker contacted the victim’s parents to arrange an interview, defendant reiterated his intent to kill her unless she recanted her story; she recanted.
Under 13 V.S.A. § 3252(а)(1)(C) (prior to 1990 amendment), sexual assault occurs when a person compels another person to engage in a sexual act “[b]y placing the other person in fear that any person will be harmed imminently.” Defendant argues that the fear-producing threats must be proximate to the incident. Nothing in 13 V.S.A. § 3252(a)(1)(C) requires that the threats be made in а particular way or bear a particular temporal relation to the sexual act. The statute requires only that the victim fear imminent harm; it is silent as to how and when that fear must be instilled. Here, the victim had been conditioned by repeated threats of harm to submit to defendant over a four-year period. See
In re Nash,
II.
Uncharged Crimes
Under V.R.E. 404(b), evidence of defendant’s past crimes or wrongs is not admissible to prove character and that defendant “acted in conformity therewith.” However, such evidence may “be admissible for other purposes, such as proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident.” V.R.E. 404(b). Once evidence is shown to be relevant for any reason (other than character) — whether listed as an exception or not — it still “may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice.” V.R.E. 403. Admission or exclusion of evidence under this rule is a matter of discretion.
State v. Parker,
A.
Prior sexual abuse
Defendant assaulted the victim once a week over a period of four years, beginning when she was thirteen. He threatened her with physical harm and even death should she resist or report the incidents. The introduction of this evidence wаs not error.
The evidence of a continuous practice of sexual abuse accompanied by threats to the victim’s life was highly probative of the victim’s state of mind — that is, the existence of her fear of imminent harm, a key element of the crime — and indispensable in establishing defendant’s modus operandi of overcoming the victim’s will by putting her in fear of harm.
*415 B.
Violent behavior
After the August 22nd incident, the victim entered into a relationship with John Tricou, whom she eventually married. Upon learning that his daughter had become engaged, dеfendant made threatening phone calls to Mr. Tricou. On August 31, when defendant encountered his daughter and Mr. Tricou together in Colchester, he became violent and physiсally assaulted his daughter by punching her in the face and attempting to pull her engagement ring off her finger, pummeled her car with his fists, and asked her if she wanted to die. At that time, he also threatened Mr. Tricou, saying, “stay away or you’ll die,” and attacked his car by smashing the windshield with his fist and putting dents in the side panels. Defendant then followed his daughter from the scenе and rammed his truck into the back of her car.
These actions were admissible as relevant to portray a man consumed with jealousy and corroborate the daughter’s allegations that her father treated her as an object for his sexual gratification. In other words, this evidence was relevant to show that defendant had a proprietary sexual interest in the victim, his actions being consistent with those of a jealous lover. See
State v. Giroux,
C.
“Contract” on victim’s life
Mr. Powers, one of defendant’s coworkers, testified that defendant had plotted with him to kill the victim and her fiance, entomb them in a car, and bury it in a large pit on the cоnstruction site where defendant and Mr. Powers both worked. Defendant’s initiation of a plot to kill the victim and her fiance was admitted as relevant to defendant’s guilty state of mind and the existence of a continuing plan or scheme. Whether defendant himself ever took his own talk of murder seriously is not so much the issue as the fact that he would “mouth off” about killing his daughter and her fiance.
*416 Defendant had ample opportunity to attack Mr. Powers’ credibility and the plausibility of the purported assassination plan. Whatevеr unfair prejudice may have been engendered was substantially outweighed by its probative worth. It was not an abuse of discretion to admit it.
III.
Protection of Younger Sister
A witness was present while the victim’s mother spoke to the victim over the telephone. During the phone conversation, the witness heard the victim’s mother ask the victim to drop the assault charge. After the mоther hung up, the witness asked her what the victim’s response had been. According to the witness, the mother told her the victim had said that she had to continue prosecuting the case to protect her younger sister. Defendant moved to strike this testimony; the motion was denied.
Defendant maintains he was unfairly prejudiced by the statement about the victim’s desire to protect her younger sister because it could have prompted the jury to convict him, not for the crime charged, but to prevent the commission of a futurе crime. While this testimony may have had some unfair prejudicial impact, it must be considered in the context of the entire proceedings. The statement was unsolicited аnd unanticipated. The statement was one sentence uttered at the end of over four days of testimony. The younger daughter, who was supposedly being protectеd, had testified to the effect that she loved her father and had expressed no concern for her safety. The testimony was not mentioned in the State’s closing argument. Granting the motion and giving a limiting instruction would only have highlighted the evidence. We conclude the court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant’s motion to strike the testimony.
Affirmed.