Hearing is postponed in rape case

SANDPOINT - A preliminary hearing for a Sandpoint teen accused of forcible rape was postponed Wednesday to give the defense more time to prepare, according to court documents.

Jesse Diego Thomas remains jailed on $100,000 bail. A new hearing date is pending, although it's expected it will be held within 14 days because Thomas is still in custody.

Thomas, 18, is charged with raping a 14-year-old girl at his Ella Street home on Oct. 23.

The alleged assault came to light the following day, after the girl disclosed the incident to her school counselor, court records indicate. She told Sandpoint Police she left school to visit a friend who lives in the same home as the defendant.

During the visit, Thomas pulled the teen into his bedroom, locked the door behind them and pushed the teen onto his bed, according to unsealed probable cause hearing testimony.

Detective Chris Higbee testified at the Oct. 24 hearing that the alleged victim tried to rebuff his advances.

"She stated that she told him 'no' several times and that she tried pushing him off of her and that he held her arms," Higbee told Judge Debra Heise during the hearing. "She was unable to get out from underneath him."

Several other teens were in the home at the time, one of whom admitted to the girl that she heard her saying "no," according to Higbee's testimony. However, the 17-year-old girl, who was identified as the defendant's former girlfriend, allegedly warned the victim that if she reported the incident to police, she would be beaten up for being an informant.

Higbee told the court he believed the victim's account to be truthful.

"She just wanted to make sure that this never, ever happened to anybody else," Higbee testified.

The victim's clothing, including stained underwear, was seized as evidence and Bonner County Deputy Prosecutor Louis Marshall secured a search warrant to obtain a DNA sample from the defendant, court records show.

Another resident of the home at 413 North Ella was arrested for violating a no-contact order because the protected party was there when the single-wide trailer was searched by police.

The no-contact order stemmed from a case in which Stephen Allen Michael Estes was charged with statutory rape for having consensual sex with an underage girl last year, court records indicate. The charge was subsequently reduced to misdemeanor battery and Estes, 20, was given a suspended six-month jail sentence.

A condition of Estes' probation forbid him from having contact with the victim in his case.