Amber Alert search continues

Woman who allegedly took children has history of scraps with the law

Mimi C. Hiibel’s custody battle in Idaho started five years ago and reached a crescendo this week when the 35-year-old Rathdrum woman faced the loss of her custodial rights.

Police say Hiibel likely took her 6-year-old son, Leo Isador Hiibel-Cloutier, and 17-year-old Gene W. “GW” Hiibel, and left the area prompting an Amber Alert around 2:30 p.m. Thursday by Rathdrum police.

Authorities think Hiibel may be heading to Winnemucca, Nev., where she lived as a child, and has relatives.

Hiibel and the children had not been located by press time Friday. But the car Hiibel was last seen driving was found abandoned in Hayden.

A spokesperson at the Winnemucca Sheriff’s Office said the Hiibel family is well known in the area and authorities there were aware Hiibel may be headed to their northwest Nevada county.

Mimi Hiibel began showing up in Kootenai County court records in 2014 when she was cited for two counts of injury to a child, both of them misdemeanors, and both were dismissed by prosecutors.

She was cited two more times in 2015, also for injury to a child. Both counts were dismissed.

Misdemeanor injury to a child can be charged any time an adult allows a child to be in harm’s way. In one of the 2015 cases, Hiibel was allegedly transporting a child in her car while she was under the influence of alcohol.

The 2015 charges included a DUI, one misdemeanor count of having an open container of alcohol and two counts of assaulting police officers, also misdemeanors.

The charges came about the same time as her custody battle with Robert A. Cloutier, 62, of Rathdrum who is Leo Isador Hiibel-Cloutier’s father. But court records show that Hiibel was already engaged in a custody battle in Winnemucca at the time because of earlier Kootenai County charges.

“She is a single mother and has two children,” a defense attorney told a First District Magistrate Court judge at the 2015 hearings. “She had her kids taken away from her.”

Coeur d’Alene Magistrate James Combo sentenced her to local jail time, 8 hours of community service and made her attend alcohol abuse counseling.

Hiibel told the court in 2015 that she began drinking after her relationship with Cloutier went south.

According to court records, Hiibel had straightened out.

“I love my kids and I will do anything,” she said. “Alcohol won’t affect me anymore.”

Since her 2015 misdemeanor convictions, Hiibel was twice charged with custodial interference. Both of those misdemeanors were also dismissed in First District Court.

Last month, after a report was filed by a court-appointed child guardian, attorneys for Cloutier asked the court for a temporary restraining order against Hiibel and to have her visitation rights taken away.

Hiibel grew up in a large family of nine siblings, mostly in northwestern Nevada. Her father, Dudley, was a rancher best known for his resistance against law enforcement when he was stopped by deputies on a rural road and taken to jail because he would not provide them with his name. The case was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in Hiibel v. Nevada in which the court ruled against Hiibel.

The Amber Alert was issued Thursday for the 6-year-old boy and his 17-year-old brother and police said Hiibel may be taking the boys to Oklahoma or Nevada. The boys were most recently seen Sunday morning in Rathdrum at Super 1 Foods.

Police said Leo has short black hair and brown eyes with a large gap between his two front teeth. He is 4 feet tall and weighs 70 pounds.

His older brother has light brown hair and hazel eyes. GW is 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighs 170 pounds.

Hiibel is 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighs about 145 pounds. She has brown hair and green eyes, and has a tattoo of a “J” on the back of her left hand, near her thumb, police said.

Those with information on Hiibel can contact the Rathdrum Police Department at 208-687-0711 or email crimetips@rathdrumpolice.org.