Plea deal for Bertollini meets hurdle

SANDPOINT – Across the street from where he once preached his racist message, former Aryan Nations financier R. Vincent Bertollini was led in handcuffs into 1st District Court on Monday for arraignment on two felonies.

Under a tentative plea bargain, Bertollini was expected to plead guilty to bail jumping and drunken driving, but he balked at the deal minutes after Judge Steve Verby said he wouldn’t be bound by the sentencing recommendations.

As spelled out in court by Public Defender Hugh Nisbet, the 67-year-old former Silicon Valley business executive would plead guilty to both felonies and be sentenced to concurrent terms of six months in jail.

And, as part of the same plea agreement, Bonner County wouldn’t object if Bertollini completed those six months in jail in New Mexico where he faces federal firearms counts.

Bertollini was arrested by FBI agents in Santa Fe, N.M., on April 12 for being a federal fugitive for five years. Agents found eight firearms, including a sawed-off shotgun, leading to the federal charges filed last week in New Mexico.

Bertollini vanished from Bonner County in July 2001, shortly before he was to stand trial on his third DUI arrest in Idaho in a five-year period.

At the time, he and his associate, millionaire businessman Carl Story, operated the 11th Hour Remnant Messenger, espousing a brand of religious racism known as Christian Identity. The Sandpoint-based organization operated a Web site and spent thousands mass-mailing racist posters, videos and helping bankroll Aryan Nations founder Richard Butler.

On a cold night in November 1998, across the street from the Bonner County Courthouse, Butler and Bertollini showed up at Sandpoint’s Community Hall for a confrontation with human rights activists.

There, wearing a double-breasted suit and looking as natty as a Wall Street broker, Bertollini said he had embarked on his racist mission because, in his opinion, the Bible proclaims that white people are the true children of God with a mission to fulfill.

For his arraignment Monday, Bertollini was led into court in handcuffs, linked to a waist-chain restraint. Sporting a gray goatee and close-cropped hair, he wore a jail-issued yellow jumpsuit with “Bonner County Jail” on the back.

In custody on $3 million bond, Bertollini was brought to court with an African-American man in custody on unrelated burglary and battery charges. The other man appeared puzzled by press photographers taking Bertollini’s picture as the two prisoners were escorted down the courthouse hallway by armed bailiffs.

In court, the public defender representing Bertollini said his client had two questions – whether Verby also would be the sentencing judge and whether he would be inclined to go along with the six-month jail term contained in the plea agreement.

Verby said he would be the judge handing down the sentence.

“I’m not going to agree to be bound by the (plea) agreement,” the judge told Bertollini and his defense attorney.

At that point, the two conferred and asked for more time. If he pleads not guilty and takes the two felony charges to trial, Bertollini likely faces the prospect, if convicted, of serving more than six months in jail.

The judge rescheduled the matter for July 10.