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News >  Spokane

Shooter avoids prison time due to delay

A Spokane man who shot two people with a shotgun will avoid 18 months of prison time because the Spokane County Prosecutor's Office moved too slowly. A Washington Court of Appeals decision this week indicates a firearm enhancement should have added 18 months to the 21-month sentence Mark William Walsh got for shooting his stepson, Sean Ahseln, and Ahseln's girlfriend, Jennifer Ballard, in February 2001.
News >  Spokane

Problems piling up for state trooper, wife

A Washington state trooper from Colville, fined last year for selling $600,000 worth of unregistered securities, now has more problems. Trooper Kenneth J. Sjordal has been passed over for promotion eight times this year, and is being investigated on new misconduct allegations that WSP officials haven't publicly disclosed.
News >  Spokane

Hometown hero O’Grady stumps for Bush at picnic in Spokane

Retired Air Force Capt. Scott O'Grady, known nationally for surviving six days behind enemy lines after being shot down over Bosnia in 1995, wrapped up a Spokane homecoming visit Monday with some presidential politics. O'Grady, 38, came for his 20th Lewis and Clark High School reunion and stayed over to share his views on who should be commander in chief.
News >  Spokane

Mom back in custody after contacting daughter

A Medical Lake woman who stabbed her 8-year-old daughter to death in September 1999 has been charged with violating a court order by talking to her surviving daughter. Sharon L. Curry, 46, was ordered to have no contact with her surviving daughter and son after she was acquitted of first-degree murder by reason of insanity.
News >  Spokane

Kidnapper faces trial on Aug. 24 in hit-man case

A Grant County, Wash., kidnapper at the center of a sweeping U.S. Supreme Court decision in June faces trial Aug. 24 for allegedly trying to hire a hit man. Howard Ralph Blakely Jr., 68, is accused of trying to recruit a fellow inmate at the Airway Heights Corrections Center to kill his ex-wife, Yolanda Blakely, and another person believed to be one of his daughters.
News >  Spokane

Sex offender may be linked to other crimes

Authorities say a serial sex offender who preyed on women working alone at small businesses also may have been involved in carjackings and an attempted bank robbery. Investigators couldn't marshal enough evidence to charge Joseph R. Walton, 31, of Coeur d'Alene, in the carjacking and bank-robbery cases. But he has now been convicted of four attacks on women in Spokane, Kootenai and Benewah counties.
News >  Spokane

Guilty plea in cross-burning

A 17-year-old Elk-area boy pleaded guilty Friday to malicious harassment for burning a cross last April in front of the home of two black classmates and their Native American father. The boy was the last of four to accept a plea bargain in which three counts of malicious harassment were consolidated into a single count that noted there were three victims. The deal cut the boys' sentences to one-third of what they could have gotten.
News >  Spokane

Replacement announced for David Thorn

Spokane County Superior Court judges announced Thursday that they have appointed local attorney James M. Triplet to replace retiring court Commissioner David Thorn. Triplet, who turns 41 next month, was chosen from 37 applicants and six finalists in a process that began on June 1.
News >  Spokane

Key questions put in charges in assault case

The Spokane County prosecutor's office moved Wednesday to amend charges in a child-assault case to comply with a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision limiting stiffer-than-standard sentences. The court said last month in a Grant County, Wash., case that only a jury can give a defendant a longer-than-standard sentence unless the defendant agrees.
News >  Voices

Yard sale to benefit transplant candidate

Family and friends of a longtime north Spokane resident will conduct a giant yard sale this weekend to celebrate her birthday and help with cost of a double bone-marrow transplant. Debbie Bridge, who turns 45 on Tuesday, is battling Burkitt's — or non-Hodgkin's — lymphoma, which recently recurred after seven years of remission.
News >  Spokane

Man convicted of raping 3-year-old boy

A 26-year-old Spokane man was convicted Thursday of raping a 3-year-old boy twice in October 2002, nearly killing the child on the second occasion. The evidence against Cory G. Preston was clear and sometimes "overwhelmingly powerful," Spokane County Superior Court Judge Jerome Leveque said.
News >  Spokane

Long term ordered for sex offender

A Spokane man with a long record of sex offenses – including voyeurism in a downtown restroom – got a maximum sentence Wednesday for attempting to rape a 54-year-old grandmother of eight. Spokane County Superior Court Judge Kathleen O'Connor gave Joshua J. Hood, 22, a prison term of 17 1/2 years to life. Hood sought the minimum sentence of 13 years to life.
News >  Spokane

Judge rejects deal for teen in cross-burning case

One of four teenage boys accused of burning a cross in front of the Elk-area home of two black classmates last April tried unsuccessfully Tuesday to cut a deal that would spare him a criminal record. The 17-year-old boy asked Spokane County Juvenile Court Judge Neil Rielly to grant him a "deferred disposition" in which three charges of malicious harassment would be dismissed if he satisfied court-ordered requirements.
News >  Spokane

Judge says confession valid in trial of man accused of child rape

The confession of a Spokane man accused of raping and severely injuring a 3-year-old boy was valid, a judge ruled Tuesday in a non-jury trial expected to last all week. Cory G. Preston, 26, knew what he was doing and wasn't coerced when he admitted raping a boy with a sex device in October 2002, Spokane County Superior Court Judge Jerome Leveque concluded.
News >  Spokane

Testimony starts in rape trial

Testimony got under way Monday in the nonjury trial of a Spokane man accused of raping and gravely injuring a 3-year-old boy he was baby-sitting. Cory Preston, 26, is accused of injuring the boy so severely that he nearly died. Doctors had to perform emergency surgery to save his life.
News >  Spokane

Stevens County planners get time for study

Stevens County commissioners, facing constituents who want land-use controls but don't like zoning, are responding with ordinances to regulate only the kind of projects that generate broad criticism. This week, for the second time in two months, commissioners have imposed a six-month development moratorium to give county planners time to develop regulations. Last month, the issue was cell phone towers; this time, it's group homes.
News >  Spokane

House cat moves out after hungry cougar moves in

Republic, Wash., used to be the kind of place where residents could leave their front doors open on hot summer nights. Cleve Ives, the Ferry County juvenile services coordinator, won't be doing that again. Not since the night three weeks ago when his tabby cat, Isabelle, jumped on his bed and woke him up around 2 a.m.
News >  Spokane

Man gets 15 years for murder of girlfriend’s 2-year-old son

Michael R. Emerson was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years in prison for killing a 2-year-old boy who had just learned to say "I love you" and had never called anyone but Emerson "daddy." Emerson, 26, was baby-sitting Gage Roberts and two older sons of his girlfriend last July in the apartment they shared on West College. He became angry when Gage cried and refused to take a nap.
News >  Spokane

Man pleads guilty to raping girls

Elk-area resident Sean W. Buckhanan pleaded guilty Monday to raping two teenage girls repeatedly in a case involving allegations of incest and witchcraft rituals by Buckhanan and his 34-year-old sister. Buckhanan, 40, admitted first-degree rape of a 16-year-old girl, now 18, in whose home he was living and second-degree rape of another 16-year-old girl, now 17. A third count of communication with a minor for immoral purposes, involving a third girl, was dismissed.
News >  Spokane

Man gets 20 years in cabbie shooting

Former cabbie Jack Gordon walked out of a Spokane County courtroom Friday with a debt to "unsung heroes" on his mind. The man who shot the 61-year-old Gordon in the head for $200 left the courtroom in shackles and in fear for his immortal soul.
News >  Spokane

Only juries can give criminals more time

A U.S. Supreme Court decision Thursday in a Grant County, Wash., case stripped judges of independent power to sentence defendants to longer-than-standard prison terms. Aggravating factors used to justify extra-tough sentences now must be determined by juries, not judges. Defendants may waive that right, but a guilty plea alone is not sufficient, the high court said.
News >  Spokane

Woman sentenced to 37 months

A former Republic, Wash., title company owner hoped to be a multimillionaire when she stole more than $670,000 and poured it into a get-rich-quick scheme. Instead, she got three years in a federal prison. U.S. District Judge Justin Quackenbush sentenced Donna Burbank to 37 months Thursday in a hearing that lasted five hours. It was the minimum standard penalty under federal guidelines the court wrestled with for much of the afternoon.
News >  Spokane

NRA aims to ease laws for hunters

The National Rifle Association will soon roll out a program to make it easier for "the guy at the Texaco station" to go hunting, NRA president Kayne Robinson announced Tuesday in Spokane. The gun-rights lobbying organization plans to fight closures of public lands to motor vehicles, saying it makes it difficult for working-class people to hunt, and to battle complex or intrusive regulations that intimidate hunters.
News >  Spokane

Co-workers go extra yard for reservist

LOON LAKE, Wash. – Army reservist John Cushman's children have been playing on grass instead of gravel while he serves in Iraq, thanks to his fellow corrections officers at the Stevens County Jail. Cushman's wife, Monette, had her hands full with two young boys – Zachary, 6, and John, 1 1/2 – and needed a place for them to play outdoors this spring. But John Cushman was called to active duty in November just after the family had moved into a new home with no lawn.
News >  Spokane

5-year term due for fatalities

NEWPORT, Wash. — A 22-year-old Mead-area woman was sentenced to nearly 5 1/2 years in prison Thursday for a alcohol-related traffic accident last August in Pend Oreille County that killed two of her friends. There was scarcely a dry eye in the packed courtroom by the time Superior Court Judge Al Nielson sentenced Dawn H. Wiltzius, a recent Mount Spokane High School honor student who had just finished her junior year as a University of Washington biology major.