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Kidnapping charge added to Lethrud's
woes |
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December 12, 2011 |
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Preston
Lethrud |
Boundary County's case against 23-year old
Preston Lethrud got a bit more serious at a
preliminary hearing Friday when deputy
prosecutor Tevis Hull filed an additional charge
of second-degree kidnapping to the charges of
felony aggravated assault, domestic battery and
unlawful entry originally filed after an
alleged all-night assault on his nine-month pregnant
girlfriend November 26.
Contrary to the initial report published by News
Bonners Ferry December 3, (click
here),
it wasn't his victim that phoned police, but one
of her co-workers, concerned that she hadn't
shown up at work on what was supposed to have
been her last day before going on maternity
leave.
Sheriff's Investigator David McLelland took the
call, and decided to go to the victim's Moyie
Springs home rather than call to see if she was
okay. On arrival, he said in court, he found a
vehicle, later determined to have been driven by
there by Lethrud, parked so as to block in the
victim's car, preventing her from leaving.
When McLelland knocked on the door, he said, the
victim answered, initially denying that anything
untoward had occurred. By the way she acted,
McLelland said he had reason to believe the
woman was in fear, so he asked her if she needed
a safe place to talk, and, crying, she said,
"yes."
Once away from the home and comforted by a femal
officer and a professional victim's advocate, he
said, she described a night of horror.
They were at her home, she said, watching television
and playing video games when he pulled out a
bottle of vodka and began drinking. He began
demanding sex, but she refused, enraging
Lethrud, who became verbally abusive. She
managed to calm him down, and drove him to his
parents home on Chippewa Street in Bonners
Ferry, but as she tried to return home, he
allegedly grabbed a two-by-four from the back of
his father's pickup and tried to stop her from
leaving.
She stopped, and he dropped the board and began
beating his fists on her driver's side window.
Rather than have him break the window, she said,
she stopped and rolled it down, and he grabbed
the front of her coat, screaming and
threatening. Shaken, she said she managed to
calm him down again and leave to drive back to
her Moyie Springs home, where she lay down on
the couch to try to sleep.
She woke shortly thereafter to the sound of
someone beating on her door, and tried to ignore
it, but her alleged assailant, Lethrud, didn't
go away.
Instead, the court record says, he broke the
back door window, gained entrance to her home
and grabbed her off the couch, pulling her to
her bedroom and throwing her on the bed. He had
a butcher knife, she said, which he held to her
throat, saying "I could kill you if I wanted
to."
Eventually, he either passed out or fell asleep,
and his victim found she couldn't leave as her
car was blocked in, keeping her from going to
work. She never imagined, she told McLelland,
that one of her co-workers would have enough
concern to make a phone call on her behalf.
Lethrud was initially charged with aggravated
battery, a felony carrying up to five years in
prison and/or a $5,000 fine, for holding a knife
to her throat and threatening to kill her, along
with misdemeanor counts of domestic battery and
unlawful entry.
After reviewing the case, the Boundary County
prosecutor's office concurred with McLelland's
assessment that a case could be made for
second-degree kidnapping, differing only from
first degree in that he didn't demand a ransom.
If convicted of that charge, Lethrud could face
up to 25 years in prison. His arraignment,
during which he'll enter his plea to the charges
he is facing, has been set for early January. He
remains in jail in lieu of $150,000 bond. |
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