Road rage charges challenged

The Kootenai County prosecutor’s office on Wednesday dropped the aggravated assault charge against Jonathan Wade Ellington, the Hayden man accused of running over an Athol woman in a case of road rage on New Year’s Day.

Ellington will stand trial in August for second-degree murder and two charges of aggravated battery stemming from the Jan. 1 death of 41-year-old Vonette Larsen unless Judge John Luster approves a defense motion to dismiss the case. Luster heard that motion Wednesday but did not make a ruling.

Luster said he had reservations about the motion, which asks for all charges to be dropped for lack of evidence of intended malice. He said he’ll issue a ruling after reviewing the evidence. Mark Durant of the county public defender’s office said he doesn’t expect a decision for at least two weeks.

The judge did approve Deputy Public Defender Anne Taylor’s request to postpone the trial, moving it from June to Aug. 21.

A 911 recording, hundreds of pages of testimony, hours of video interviews and numerous photographs and diagrams detail the case, which began as an altercation between Larsen’s daughters – Jovon and Jolene – and Ellington.

The daughters previously testified that they were driving near their parents’ Athol home when Ellington began tailgating them. A high-speed pursuit ensued, and their parents, Joel and Vonette Larsen, came to the scene. The chase ended on Scarcello Road, with Ellington allegedly ramming the Larsen daughters’ car with his Chevy Blazer, then running over Vonette Larsen, killing her.

Prosecutors originally sought a second-degree murder charge against Ellington, but Magistrate Judge Eugene Marano ruled in January that there wasn’t enough evidence of “malice intent” to warrant that. Marano ordered the charge reduced to involuntary manslaughter.

Then in February, Magistrate Judge Benjamin Simpson agreed with prosecutors that there was enough evidence and approved a new second-degree murder charge.

Taylor, Ellington’s attorney, questioned Simpson’s ruling, saying he had focused only on a portion of the evidence. She said the events surrounding Larsen’s death lasted just 12 seconds, with the Larsens trying to block Ellington’s Blazer from leaving and Joel Larsen firing shots just feet from Ellington. Joel Larsen testified previously that he fired at least one shot near Ellington from his .44-caliber handgun.

The charges against Ellington require proof that he intended to run over Vonette Larsen.

“There’s no way that malice has been established in this case, either expressed or implied,” Taylor said.

Luster questioned how the 12-second time frame was established, emphasizing that 12 seconds could be considered a substantial amount of time in some cases.

“Twelve seconds can be a relative thing,” he said.

Deputy Prosecutor Art Verharen argued that Ellington’s actions before the altercation that killed Vonette Larsen showed malice intent.

“You have these indicators that, for whatever reason, he was very angry at those girls,” Verharen said.

He went through the court testimony, focusing on witness accounts that Ellington could have left the scene but chose to run over Vonette Larsen. One of the daughters told the court previously she feared for her life, and Joel Larsen testified previously that he was afraid Ellington was crushing his daughters to death in the car by ramming into it. Verharen emphasized that witnesses say Ellington was trying to accelerate when ramming the Larsen’s car and could have left the scene without hitting Vonette Larsen.

Luster defended Simpson’s earlier ruling but said he would examine all the evidence before making a decision on whether to drop the charges.

“Both counsels have focused on only a small portion,” the judge said.