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Suicide attempt postpones Nold trial

by Ralph Bartholdt Staff Writer
| March 14, 2018 5:15 PM

COEUR d’ALENE — The trial for a Hayden man accused of soliciting a teenager for sex was vacated Wednesday after the defendant didn’t appear at a pretrial hearing.

Ronald Nold, 65, failed to show up at his hearing in First District Court, which was supposed to be the final hearing before a March 19 jury trial.

Deputy prosecutor Rebecca Perez asked the court for a bench warrant, which was uncontested by defense counsel and issued by District Judge John Mitchell.

“There was a suicide attempt last night,” said deputy prosecutor Rebecca Perez. “Based on that, I thought the bench warrant was appropriate.”

Attorneys and the judge discussed the issue in chambers before announcing a continuance and the no-bond warrant.

Nold was expected to plead guilty at Wednesday’s hearing, according to attorneys who had been negotiating a plea bargain since October.

“The (defense attorney) has indicated there will be a guilty plea at the next pretrial conference,” Perez told the court last month. “The state will not need to prepare for trial.”

Since he was charged last summer, two jury trial dates, one in December and another in January, have been vacated.

Police officers pretended to be a 15-year-old boy who was looking for gay sex when Nold answered a Craigslist ad.

Nold allegedly exchanged text messages last August with police and agreed to meet the person he thought was a teenager at a Coeur d’Alene hotel. When Nold showed up, he was arrested and charged with one felony count of enticing.

Nold was a compliant sex offender prior to his arrest, according to the state’s sex offender registry. His initial charges date back to 1993 when he was convicted in Oregon for three counts of sodomy. He was released from the Kootenai County jail on a $150,000 bond. If convicted, he could spend a minimum of 15 years in prison for the latest charge.