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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Henrikson moved to Yakima following August jailbreak attempt

A rope made of bedsheets hangs from a window at the Spokane County Jail. (Photo Note / The Spokesman-Review)
Accused murder-for-hire mastermind James Henrikson has been moved to the Yakima County Jail following an apparent escape attempt in Spokane last month. Officials from the Spokane County Jail, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office would not say whether the ripped bedsheets leading from a fifth-floor window of the jail on Aug. 20 were part of a plot by Henrikson, who has been jailed in Spokane since he was indicted on charges stemming from the slaying of Doug Carlile on the South Hill in December 2013. Henrikson’s attorneys, however, say they faced new restrictions on visiting their client after the time of the escape attempt. Mark Vovos, one of the attorneys representing Henrikson, said he visited his client the day after the attempt and was told by jail staff there would be restrictions on his visit. I “could not visit Mr. Henrikson in the attorney booth, but only in a public booth where all of our conversations were recorded, with an inability to pass documents for review and preparation. The records and documents defense counsel had were delivered to Mr. Henrikson in the public booth, and then after the meeting were taken from him,” Vovos wrote in a brief filed this week in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington. The same restrictions were in place when Vovos visited Henrikson a few weeks later, according to Vovos’ statement. Henrikson was moved to the Yakima County Jail without notification of his attorneys or family on Aug. 27, and remained there as of Thursday. Vovos and co-counsel, Todd Maybrown, have requested that Henrikson be moved back to Spokane to prepare for trial, which is currently scheduled for Oct. 5. They have also asked for a continuance to January, following the delivery of some 16,000 pages of phone records by prosecutors late last month. The new evidence, and the requirement to travel to Yakima to visit Henrikson, necessitate the need for a trial continuance, Maybrown and Vovos argue. But U.S. District Judge Salvador Mendoza has ruled that the continuance to Oct. 5 would be the last one he would grant in the case, which began in earnest with the arrest of alleged triggerman Timothy Suckow in Spokane in January 2014. Prosecutors plan to argue that Henrikson hired Suckow to kill Carlile over botched oil dealings in North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields. They also plan to argue that Suckow was hired more than a year before Carlile’s death to kill Kristopher “K.C.” Clarke, an employee who Henrikson suspected of striking out on his own. Clarke’s body has not been found. Four other men – Lazaro Pesina, Robert Delao, Robby Wahrer and Todd Bates – face charges that include conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and drug crimes for their alleged roles in Henrikson’s criminal enterprise. All defendants have said they do not oppose a motion to continue the trial to January. The U.S. Attorney’s Office has to the end of the day Thursday to make its case to keep the trial date on Oct. 5. Spokane County Jail officials confirmed the FBI was investigating the Aug. 20 incident, and that the cell where the sheets originated held two men. Guards discovered the sheets were being lowered from the cell window, which is less than 5 inches wide, shortly before 5 a.m. Henrikson and Suckow, both convicted felons, face potential jail sentences spanning decades. The U.S. Attorney’s Office announced earlier this year it would not seek the death penalty in the case.
This story is developing and will be updated.