Injury to a child leads to jail time

By RALPH BARTHOLDT

Staff Writer

A 47-year-old Coeur d’Alene man who lived with his mother when he solicited sex from 14-year-old gamer he met online will spend as much as a year in a prison rehabilitation program.

Andrew J. Collinsworth, who his attorney said was beaten up during the eight months he spent in the Kootenai County jail, was sentenced Tuesday to between three and six years in prison on one count of injury to a child, a felony that can carry a 10-year sentence.

Collinsworth was released on his own recognizance earlier this summer after spending 235 days in custody. He was arrested again after sentencing in which First District Senior Judge Fred Gibler called the case disturbing.

Gibler opted for the prison rehabilitation program in lieu of a longer sentence because of a recommendation by presentence investigators.

“It is appropriate,” Gibler said. “These kinds of cases are becoming more prevalent.”

Prosecutors recommended a 10-year sentence with five of those years to be spent in prison and the other five to be served at the discretion of the Department of Correction.

But defense attorneys pointed at Collinsworth’s developmental disabilities. He does not read or write, defense attorney Linda Payne said, and he is a ward of the state.

“His mother has taken internet out of the house,” Payne said. “While he was in jail he was beaten up by other inmates. He has been punished. He does not have criminal thinking.”

Payne asked that Collinsworth be placed on supervised probation.

Collinsworth pleaded guilty in June to one felony as part of a plea agreement. He had been charged with a second felony of engaging a child with sexually exploitative material, which also carries a 10-year sentence.

Collinsworth, who lives with his mother in Coeur d’Alene, played Call of Duty with a Warren, Ohio, teenager and asked her to send him a picture of her vagina. The teen obliged, and Collinsworth and the girl exchanged sexually explicit photographs and more than 2,000 text messages over several months, according to reports.

After the teenager’s stepmother notified Coeur d’Alene Police last autumn, the girl and her brother began harassing Collinsworth, police said.

A mental evaluation deemed Collinsworth unfit to proceed with court hearings and he was committed to the Department of Health and Welfare until he was considered competent.

The prison rehabilitation or rider program requires inmates to excel in their rehabilitation to ensure they are placed on probation afterward. If they fail the program, the prison term could be imposed.