Tag: courts
By Caleb Hutton
A former employee of a Bellingham luxury hotel must serve two weeks in jail for stealing eight TVs from his employer’s storage room.
The flat-screen televisions were reported stolen from a storage facility at the Hotel Bellwether on March 25, 2010. The facility was surrounded with a chain link fence and secured by a padlock. Police didn’t notice any sign of forced entry.
Five days later police discovered James Marchant, 37, an employee of the Bellwether, had pawned six TVs at Bellingham pawn shops the previous December and January, according to court records. The serial numbers matched the stolen TVs.
Marchant was sentenced in August to two weeks in jail for theft in the first degree. He started serving that sentence last week. Prosecutors recommended he serve his time on a work crew. He also has to pay back $1,500 to the hotel.
For the charging documents, click here.
By Caleb Hutton
Aristides Nolasco, a man convicted of molesting a preteen girl, must serve one year and eight months in prison, according to a ruling handed down last week in Whatcom County Superior Court.
Here’s the story Zoe Fraley wrote in June, when Nolasco pleaded guilty.
A 47-year-old man pleaded guilty to molesting a preteen girl who had come forward to a school counselor about the abuse after watching a school video about bullying and sexual harassment. Aristides Nolasco pleaded guilty to second-degree child molestation Thursday, June 28.
The Bellingham Police Department began investigating the sexual abuse last October after the girl came forward with the allegations. She told officers that when she was 9 or 10, Nolasco had touched her breasts and vagina under her clothes while they were driving to pick someone up, according to court documents.
She told investigators that he told her she should rub her breasts in the shower so that they would grow. When she was 11, he reached down her shirt while she was watching TV on the couch. She told investigators that she sat up and hugged a pillow to stop him from going any further.
When investigators interviewed Nolasco, he originally told them that the girl was making up the allegations for attention. He later admitted that she wasn’t lying and that he remembered the incident in the car and the one on the couch, though he couldn’t recall if he had touched her breasts the second time.
Nolasco had no felony history.
By Caleb Hutton
Via police scanner traffic:
9:03 a.m. A caller reported a woman was burning court paperwork that had just been delivered to her at an RV park on Beachcomber Drive in Birch Bay. Dispatchers said the court order hadn’t been delivered yet, according to their files, but the caller said the owner of the RV park had just served the paperwork.
9:35 a.m. A woman, in her 40s, had an allergic reaction in the Ferndale High School cafeteria. An ambulance responded.
11:20 a.m. A man ran from law enforcement. He may have told a witness he had warrants. (Location has been scratchy, but it’s probably near East Sunset Drive.) Helicopter helping in search.
At 11:51 a.m., dispatchers radioed to the pilot, “They got him detained.”
By Caleb Hutton
BELLINGHAM — A man ran away from Bellingham Municipal Court after he informed the judge his bail was set too high, police said.
Michael Ronald William Ackerman, 21, was in court at 11:20 a.m. for a domestic violence no-contact order case. When the judge told him his bail would be set at $2,000, Ackerman contended he wouldn’t be able to post bond, said Bellingham police spokesman Mark Young.
Officers were en route to the courthouse, so they could escort Ackerman to jail, when the would-be inmate ran out of the courtroom, Young said. At the time, police radioed the suspect had possibly tried to escape by bicycle, but Young didn’t see anything about a bike in the police report.
Ackerman was found hiding behind a house in the 2400 block of F Street, a few blocks away. He was booked into jail on the original charges: two counts of violating an anti-harassment order.
He has two ongoing Superior Court cases, one where he’s charged with buying heroin and another where he’s charged with possessing a glass pipe with methamphetamine residue on it.
Ackerman also pleaded guilty to second-degree robbery when he was 17 years old. According to court records, he stole a schoolmate’s wallet, with $480 and debit cards inside, by threatening to hit him with a rock.
(Disclaimer on the map: I don’t know the alleged route Ackerman took.)
By Caleb Hutton
LUMMI RESERVATION — A Blaine woman was sentenced to 30 days in jail for trying to steal a lost wallet.
In March, another woman was playing the slot machines at the Silver Reef Casino when she “unknowingly dropped her wallet on the floor,” according to charging documents. The wallet had debit and credit cards inside.
Surveillance cameras caught Julie Rene Wilburn, 53, picking up the wallet. She took the wallet to her car.
Wilburn confessed to the theft after casino employees confronted her. When the wallet was returned, the victim’s debit and credit cards were still inside, but a Fandango gift card and $20 were missing.
Wilburn pleaded guilty to second-degree theft in April. She started serving her sentence Wednesday, June 27. In a plea deal, charges of methamphetamine possession — filed in a separate case a couple months earlier — were dropped by prosecutors.
Wilburn had a handful of gross misdemeanors on her record. This was her first felony.
By Caleb Hutton
A Bellingham man who pulled hallucinogenic mushrooms from his hat after a traffic stop will serve 15 days in jail.
Tyler Bodhi Gourley, 20, was pulled over Dec. 30, 2011, after police witnessed a drug deal in an apartment parking lot at 2050 Fraser Street, a “high crime area,” according to charging documents.
Officers asked if Gourley had any drugs on him. He said yes, and pulled three Ziploc baggies from his hat, according to the charges.
One bag was full of marijuana, prosecutors wrote; the others had a total of 12.4 grams of mushrooms. The mushrooms contained psilocyn, the active hallucinogenic ingredient in so-called magic mushrooms.
Gourley pleaded guilty to soliciting possession of psilocyn. He began serving his 15-day sentence Tuesday.
By recommendation of prosecutors, 349 days of his sentence was suspended. That means if he violates the terms of his sentence, he would be facing a much longer jail term.
Note: Headline fixed at 2 p.m. Tuesday, June 12.
By Caleb Hutton
A Whatcom County man was arrested after a standoff that lasted several hours Wednesday morning, May 9, at a Samish Way hotel.
About 9 a.m., Steven Damon Smith was talking with a 40-year-old man in the parking lot of the Bellingham Lodge, 101 N. Samish Way.
The man’s tires had been slashed, probably sometime overnight. While they were discussing the tires, Smith pushed the man down for some reason — it’s not clear why, said Bellingham Police spokesman Mark Young. Smith went to his hotel room. The victim called police to report the assault and the slashed tires.
(Police aren’t sure if the two crimes are connected, Young said.)
When an officer tried to talk to Smith, he refused to cooperate and slammed the door in the officer’s face, Young said.
Smith’s history suggested he could be in possession of firearms, so officers brought in members of their SWAT team. Smith refused to open the door, Young said. That started a standoff lasting several hours.
Eventually the cops subdued Smith with “less-lethal impact munitions” (bean bag and pepper spray launchers), Young said. Smith was booked into Whatcom County Jail at 2:30 p.m. on investigation of fourth-degree assault and obstructing law enforcement.
Smith also had warrants out for his arrest, for failing to appear for fourth-degree domestic violence assault and possession of methamphetamine.
On Feb. 5, deputies were called to an assault at a home north of Kendall. Deputies arrested Smith, and while they searched him they found meth inside one of his jacket pockets, according to an affidavit filed in Whatcom County Superior Court.
He told them he had a “presidential clearing code to have it,” because he “did contract work for the president,” according to the charges. That case is ongoing.
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