Sex offense case still in limbo
Attorneys continue to negotiate a plea bargain for a Hayden man and repeat sex offender charged in Coeur d’Alene with one felony count of enticing a child.
The negotiations to reach a resolution in the case against 65-year-old Ronald D. Nold have been ongoing since October.
At a hearing last month in Coeur d’Alene’s First District Court, deputy prosecutor Rebecca Perez told a judge that attorneys were not expecting the case against Nold to proceed to trial.
Since Nold was charged last summer, two jury trial dates, one in December and another in January, have been vacated. Perez requested that the court refrain from setting a trial date this month.
“The (defense attorney) has indicated there will be a guilty plea at the next pretrial conference,” Perez told the court. “The state will not need to prepare for trial.”
In the event negotiations break down, however, First District Judge John Mitchell set Nold’s case for a March 19 trial and called for a pretrial conference five days before the trial date.
Nold, an accountant who also works as a property manager, is accused of soliciting a teenager for sex on Craigslist.
According to court records, police officers pretended to be a 15-year-old boy who was looking for gay sex when Nold answered the ad.
Nold allegedly exchanged text messages with police and agreed to meet the teenager at the Springhill Suites in Coeur d’Alene after the police officer posing as the teenager told Nold that his parents would not return to the room until midnight.
“Are you OK with me being 15,” the officer texted Nold around 11 p.m. Aug. 24.
“Ouch,” Nold replied.
“Ouch???”
“Are you really 18, or just saying that?”
“TBH (to be honest) I’m 15.”
In a conversation the next day, police posing as the teenager agreed to a meeting with Nold.
“Do you want to come up, or pick me up outside? My parents are gone until like 12.”
Nold drove to the hotel in a red Silverado pickup truck around 5:30 p.m. and waited in the parking lot. He was detained by police and interviewed.
Nold told police he thought the person he was going to pick up was 18 years old, and that he thought everyone who uses Craiglist has to be 18.
In the interview, Nold told police he grew up in Texas, moved to Las Vegas and earned a college degree — he has a master’s degree, according to court records — before moving to Idaho, where he started his own accounting business.
He told police that he had been a teacher, and he had sex with a student for which he served time in prison.
Nold, one of 366 registered sex offenders in Kootenai County, was convicted of three counts of sodomy in Malheur County, Oregon in 1993, one count of indecent liberties and one count of attempted indecent liberties in Okanogan County, Wash., 18 years ago.
In 1996, Nold was convicted of embezzlement for stealing more than $300 from the owner of a Coeur d’Alene Arby’s where he worked as an accountant.
He told police that in his adult life, he has had sex with approximately 10 minors.
According to Idaho’s sex offender registry, Nold is a compliant sex offender, meaning he has no known violations as a sex offender.
After his arrest last summer, police confiscated Nold’s cellphones, and Nold agreed to a polygraph test. Nold was asked if he had sex with a minor in the last decade, according to a police report.
“The results of Nold’s answer to this question indicated he was not being truthful,” Coeur d’Alene Police Detective Jared Reneau wrote in a report.
Neither Nold, nor his attorney, Scott Nass of Coeur d’Alene, could be reached for comment. Nold was released from jail last year on a $150,000 bond. If convicted, he could spend a minimum of 15 years in prison for the latest charge.