A 26-year-old Rathdrum man will spend at last seven years in prison for sexually abusing a minor.

Justin Scott Savage was sentenced Tuesday to 20 years in prison with eligibility for parole after seven for lewd conduct with a minor under 16, sexual abuse of a child under 16 and two counts of injury to jail.

1st District Court Judge Fred Gibler sentenced Savage, who pleaded guilty in September. Savage has previous misdemeanor convictions for theft, drugs and burglary, according to the Kootenai County Prosecutor's Office.

Sheriff's spokesman Major Ben Wolfinger said the injury to jail charges stem from Savage damaging the jail on several occasions.

A former prison nurse suspected of robbing at least 20 banks in four states also worked as a school nurse in Western Washington during the crime spree.

Suspected “Bad Hair Bandit” Cynthia Lynn Van Holland's bail was increased to $500,000 when she appeared in court in Placer County on Thursday, where she's been custody since her arrest Monday on suspicion of bank robbery. 

The New York Times reports that Van Holland, 47, had a cat and litter box in her Chrysler Sebring when she and her husband, 26-year-old felon Christopher S. Alonzo, were stopped on a freeway outside Auburn, Calif., northeast of Sacramento.

Van Holland worked as a nurse for the Bethel School District in Spanaway, Wash., from September 2010 to March of this year, during which she allegedly robbed 10 banks in Western Washington.

She moved from school to school and as a contracted LPN with Soliant Health, said Krista Carlson, spokeswoman for the Bethel School District. The nurses typically help students with preexisting medical conditions, Carlson said.

Soliant conducted a background check, and “we also did several reference checks on her and found no flags and no priors,” Carlson said.

Van Holland is a longtime license practical nurse in Idaho who met Alonzo while working in the state prison system.

She worked part-time at the Kootenai County Jail from April until just last week. The FBI believes she robbed at least eight banks during that time, including one in Spokane on May 9.

The 20-robbery spree began in Tacoma in December, but investigators suspect Van Holland may be the same wigged woman who robbed two banks in Spokane last summer.

A Coeur d'Alene man accused of offering a woman money in exchange for her granddaughters left jail just hours after he was arrested Wednesday.

Shan A. Anderson, 32, posted $1,106 bond on four misdemeanor charges, including attempted child enticing, Wednesday night, according to the Kootenai County Jail.

A 22-year-old Alaska man is accused of pointing a shotgun at a group of people in downtown Coeur d’Alene on Saturday.

Jason H. Fennimore was arrested after the alleged victims told police of the shotgun after an officer stopped the car in which Fennimore was riding for driving the wrong way in the 300 block of North Third Street about 2:30 a.m.

The victims said Fennimore pulled the gun from the trunk at threatened them after he and his friends “said something to the victim group, making the stop,” according to a news release. Police found a double-barrel, 12-gauge shotgun in the trunk.

Fennimore, who appeared on past seasons of the reality TV show “Deadliest Catch,” is in Kootenai County Jail on one count of aggravated assault.

Three brothers accused of harassing a Coeur d’Alene man because of his ethnicity say they simply asked to buy electrical equipment from the man and were stunned when he pulled a gun on them.

Ira Gino Tankovich, 47, Frank James Tankovich, 46, and William Michael Tankovich Jr., 49, (left to right) were indicted by a grand jury under Idaho’s hate crime law.

In court Friday, their lawyers characterized the Aug. 16 incident as a misunderstanding blown out of proportion after Aryan literature was distributed in Coeur d’Alene.

“I can’t see this case surviving a trial,” said Daniel Cooper, public defender for Frank Tankovich. “I just can’t fathom a jury returning a conviction.”

Read my story here.

A Coeur d’Alene resident and self-described advocate for autistic children is in jail in Missouri on sexual assault charges from more than 20 years ago.

Randall L. Tetzner, 50, was booked into the Adair County Detention Center early this morning after fighting extradition in Kootenai County, where he’d been in jail since Sept. 18.

Tetzner is charged with two counts of sodomy and two counts of rape for alleged incidents in 1986 and 1987, according to jail records.

Tetzner is well known in the Coeur d’Alene School District, where he advocates for improved policies for children with disabilities and helped start an “autism essay contest,” according to news archives.

In 2005, the Coeur d’Alene School Board settled a federal lawsuit filed by him after he was locked out of a school board meeting two years earlier.

The school board agreed to apologize to Tetzner and changed meeting minutes to acknowledge the meeting had been “inadvertently locked,” according to a story you can read here.

Tetzner’s wife also unsuccessfully ran for school board in 2005.

The difference in Tetzner’s mug shots in Idaho and Missouri is remarkable.

Above is his photo from the Kootenai County Jail in September.

To the left is the photo taken today in Missouri, where Tetzner is jailed on $250,000 bond.

A year-long graffiti spree in Post Falls has been connected to a 20-year-old man, police said today.

Grayson Kalin Shults was booked into Kootenai County Jail on one count of felony malicious injury to property after detectives with the Post Falls Police Department searched his apartment on a tip.

Detectives found items linking Shults to the 21 graffiti crimes reported over the last 10 months, according to a news release. Grayson also implicated himself in the crimes, police said.

The graffiti included the phrase “Great White” or initials “G.W.” and was found on streets, businesses and government buildings. Damage is estimated at $3,000.

A news release said the crimes “plagued the downtown Post Falls area.”

A Coeur d’Alene pharmacy employee tackled a masked armed robber and held him for police Wednesday night.

Jason Anthony Wahl, 28, will appear in Kootenai County District Court this afternoon after police arrested him at the Shopko pharmacy, 217 W. Ironwood Drive.

Wahl is accused of trying to rob the pharmacy of prescription medication just before 9 p.m.

When police arrived, an employee was on top of the robber struggling to get control of the handgun, said Sgt. Christie Wood.

Wahl had been tackled while trying to run from the store with drugs, police said. Wood declined to name the drug but said it wasn’t OxyContin.

After his arrest, Wahl appeared to have a seizure, but medics checked him and said he was OK, Wood said. He was taken to Kootenai Medical Center, then to Kootenai County Jail.

Wahl told officers he lives in Lewiston, Wood said. A jail booking sheet lists his as address being in Pomeroy, Wash.

A prominent Coeur d’Alene businessman was cited for drunken driving and public urination after a two-car crash in Coeur d’Alene Tuesday night.

John Beutler (shown above in a 2006 photo) was booked into Kootenai County Jail and bonded out, police said. He’s the owner of Century 21 Beutler and Associates.

Read Alison Boggs’ story here.