Question in case: Should police informants be ID'd?

A Coeur d’Alene judge has a few days to decide whether witnesses in an upcoming drug and shooting trial will be identified as police informants, or whether jurors will be apprised that the alleged victim had a sexual relationship with the defendant.

Kyler Bengtson, 18, pleaded not guilty to aggravated battery, unlawfully firing a weapon at an occupied house, intimidating a witness, and drug delivery. A four-day trial is set July 5 in Coeur d’Alene’s First District Court.

Judge Cynthia K.C. Meyer said Tuesday she would consider a slew of motions in the case, including the latest filings in which defense attorneys asked that police informants, among eight witnesses with criminal histories who may testify against their client, be identified.

Public Defender Anne Taylor said she must let jurors know that any testimony from the witnesses has the potential to be biased.

“I need to go into bias and motive and what these witnesses are getting in return,” Taylor said.

Taylor also wanted jurors to understand that one of the victims — a former girlfriend of Bengtson — had both denied and affirmed to authorities that she had a sexual relationship with her client.

“I am not trying to talk about her sexual history,” Taylor said. “The jury has a right to know that this is someone who is willing to look at a cop or EMTs and tell them a lie ... Her credibility is at issue.”

Bengtson, who was indicted by a grand jury, is accused of providing drugs to a woman by injecting methamphetamines into her anus — called a booty bump. She overdosed, but survived. Her friends stole Bengtson’s vehicle in retaliation, according to court records. Bengtson then used a handgun to fire bullets at the Post Falls house that he thought belonged to one of the victim’s friends, records allege. The bullet traveled through a wall into a bedroom where it allegedly struck a man in the foot.

While in jail, where he remains on a $100,000 bond, Bengtson tried to have his relatives pay off witnesses to prevent them from testifying against him, according to court records.

Deputy prosecutor Rebecca Perez said the witnesses are not being offered favors to testify. Perez said the victim’s sexual relationships, or her receiving a “booty bump” from the defendant, is not relative to the case.

“This isn’t a sex case,” she said.