Ringleader gets prison in robbery, beating case

Former high school track standout Nolan Mullen-Huber, the ringleader of a Coeur d’Alene gang of young men who sold drugs and who robbed, stripped and beat a 20-year-old, was sentenced Friday to five years in prison as part of an underlying 15-year sentence.

First District Judge Richard Christensen said the sentence took into consideration Mullen-Huber’s guilty pleas to five felonies, including drug dealing and robbery.

“You did take some accountability,” Christensen said.

But society, Christensen said, wants the court to ensure its protection.

“When injury is done intentionally to another human being, that factor goes up,” the judge said.

Mullen-Huber was the front man in the robbery last winter at Potlatch Hill where he and two co-defendants, Jordan Avery Erickson and Nathan K.W. Jones, pistol-whipped Terrel Fruechtl, breaking his nose. They punched him several times in the face after Fruechtl was driven to the site by two teenage girls he considered friends. The men stole Fruechtl’s clothes, money and keys and left him bloody, clad only in his underclothes on a frigid February night.

Deputy prosecutor Art Verharen said the teenage girls ditched Fruechtl, allowing the men to beat him. Afterward the girls met the perpetrators at an apartment to rehash the incident. At least one of the girls has been charged in juvenile court.

Fruechtl’s pounding wasn’t just a beat-down, but a vicious ambush with a weapon, Verharen said. Mullen-Huber, who considered himself an up-and-coming drug dealer, was seldom without his handgun and the high-capacity magazine that stuck out from its grip, which Mullen-Huber used in the attack.

“It’s a 9 mm semi-auto with a 19-round extended clip that he strikes Mr. Fruechtl in the face with,” Verharen said. “It has leverage, it has weight, there’s a lot of power in it. He beats Mr. Fruechtl with the pistol in the face. Any one of those blows could have killed him.”

Fruechtl told the court Friday morning that he feared for his life.

“I honestly thought I was going to die,” he said.

As he beat Fruechtl, Mullen-Huber told him “this is what you get” for stealing his girlfriend.

“I was cold, I was freezing, I was way up Potlatch Hill,” Fruechtl said.

His assailants had stolen the suit he bought at Kohl’s that day and had worn to church that evening before meeting the girls, who drove him to Potlatch Hill in a black BMW. Bloody, suffering from a broken nose and a concussion, Fruechtl climbed a tree to prevent frostbite on his feet.

“I didn’t know if they would come back for me,” he said. “I was scared for my life.”

Mullen-Huber, a Lake City High track and cross-country standout, apologized to his victim and the families involved. He made no reference to his drug use as his co-conspirators had done at their sentencings. Jones was sentenced Thursday to a fixed four years in prison with an underlying 15 years, but the judge retained jurisdiction, allowing Jones a chance at probation within a year. Erickson was sentenced to five to 15 years.

Christensen said Mullen-Huber’s drug use and his earlier statement that he had blacked out and couldn’t remember the incident had no bearing on what had occurred on that icy night Feb. 26 on a hill above Coeur d’Alene.

“The court will not let you hide behind your addiction,” Christensen said.

Photos of Mullen-Huber posing with his 9mm “display your machismo being a drug dealer in the county,” the judge said. “That was a path you chose to go down.”

Christensen sentenced Mullen-Huber to three to five years for the three felony drug convictions, and five to 15 years for robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery. The sentences will run concurrently.

The judge also ordered Mullen-Huber to pay $1,200 to the Idaho State Police lab, which had to test the “treasure trove of drugs” that S.W.A.T. officers found at Mullen-Huber’s residence when he was arrested. Restitution to the victim was left open until attorneys agree on a dollar amount for Fruechtl’s medical treatment.