Teen sentenced to jail treatment program in child injury case

DALTON GARDENS — An 18-year-old accused of raping an intoxicated girl reported to jail this week.

The teen offender pleaded guilty in accordance with Alford to injury to a child, a felony that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

By entering an Alford plea, he did not admit guilt but acknowledged there was enough evidence that he might be convicted if the case went to trial.

The Press is not naming the offender because he was a minor at the time of the event and his conviction.

District Judge Cynthia Meyer sentenced the offender last week to 10 years in prison, with four years fixed and six indeterminate.

Meyer opted to retain jurisdiction in the case.

This means the offender will spend up to a year in a jail treatment program, called a rider, before Meyer either places him on probation or sends him to prison.

The charge stems from January 2020, when a Hayden Lake teen reported that she had been sexually assaulted at a house party in Dalton Gardens.

The offender and victim were both 16 years old at the time of the event.

Witnesses at the party told police the offender sent a video via Snapchat that appeared to show him engaging in sexual activity with the girl in a bedroom.

At that point, two partygoers reportedly went to break up the activity.

They told police they found the girl unresponsive in bed, wearing only a shirt and underwear, while the offender was dressed.

They also found a used condom on the bed, which police later collected as evidence.

The girl was so drunk she couldn’t speak or keep her eyes open, witnesses said, and she had to be carried into a bathroom, where she vomited uncontrollably.

The girl sought medical care and reported the incident to police the following day, according to court documents.

When contacted by police, the offender reportedly said that any sexual activity was consensual.

Prosecutors charged the offender with rape in August 2020.

As part of a pretrial settlement agreement, he pleaded guilty in April to the amended charge of injury to a child.

In Idaho, injury to a child occurs when a person willfully causes or permits a child to be placed in a position that causes or is likely to cause great bodily injury, suffering or death.

Prosecutors recommended retained jurisdiction in the case.

Before Judge Meyer handed down a sentence last week, the girl told the court how her life has changed since the party, when she said her innocence was taken from her.

“I am a different person,” she said. “I lost all value I had in myself. I lost myself and felt empty.”

She said she struggles with anxiety and is slowly piecing her life back together.

“I still feel shock that this could happen to me — shock that one night could change my life as it has,” she said.

Judge Meyer called the case “a parent’s worst nightmare.”

In court last week, prosecutors showed a video that depicted the offender at a party that occurred prior to sentencing.

In the footage, he wore a shirt emblazoned with the words “I am not a felon.”

Meyer described the behavior shown in the video as “flippant, arrogant and cruel,” adding that it mocked the victim’s pain.

“It is unacceptable,” she told the offender. “You are a felon.”

A risk assessment algorithm reportedly found the offender to have a low to moderate risk of recidivism.

Meyer said the offender was in need of a wake-up call, making at least a year of jail time appropriate.

“I need you to see what you did was wrong, dangerous and harmful to another person,” she said.