Mattern sentenced for molestation

A 58-year-old Post Falls business owner was ordered Tuesday to serve at least 10 years in prison for child molestation.

Daniel S. Mattern was sentenced in Coeur d’Alene to a mandatory 10 years, followed by another 10 years indeterminate, for a combined 20 years.

Mattern, the owner of Specialty Construction Systems and S.C.S. Properties of Post Falls, admitted to fondling children. He said the incidents occurred decades ago and that there has not been an incident since then.

“Most of it I am guilty of,” Mattern told the court. “I am sorry for what I did.”

But Mattern wasn’t facing the lewd conduct charges for which he was arrested in February and which can carry a sentence of life behind bars. An amended complaint charged him with three counts of injury to a child, which carries a much lower maximum sentence.

In front of a packed courtroom, however, two alleged victims addressed the court in emotional pleas to lock up Mattern. One of the victims, a teenager, said she was recently molested. One of the victims accused Mattern of continually raping her when she was a child.

The plea agreement could have kept Mattern out of prison, but after listening to the victims — one of the statements lasted more than 40 minutes, during which the woman painfully recounted the assaults — First District Judge Cynthia K.C. Meyer said Mattern deserved the full measure of the sentences.

Mattern was accused in February of having sex with underage girls between the ages of 6 and 16 during a 10-year period beginning in 1990 and again between 2010 and 2014, according to court records.

He originally was charged with two counts of lewd conduct, which can carry up to life in prison, but the charges were negotiated as part of an agreement that resulted in Mattern pleading guilty to three counts of injury to a child, which carry up to 10 years each.

Because of his clean criminal record and because the case stems from almost 20 years ago, his attorney, Rick Baughman, asked the court to place his client on probation, or at most, send him to a 12-month prison rehabilitation program.

Prosecutors disagreed.

In their statements, deputy prosecutor Jed Whitaker’s witnesses laid out the details of what one of them called Mattern’s “torture.”

They accused Mattern of downplaying, lying and not taking responsibility for the sexual abuse he inflicted on them.

Whitaker told the court there is one way to know the victims’ statements are true.

“They know the details,” he said.

He said Mattern’s expression of remorse was ridiculous.