Coolin man held on weapons offense
SANDPOINT — A Coolin man who was involved in a notorious shoot-out with a Bonner County Sheriff’s deputy on Priest Lake was arrested last weekend for illegally possessing firearms.
Douglas Neal Newbauer was forbidden from possessing guns following his 1999 conviction for aggravated assault against the marine deputy.
Newbauer, 49, was stopped by an Idaho State Police trooper in Priest River for a traffic offense on Sunday morning, according to the arrest report. A pellet gun and a muzzle-loading shotgun were hanging in a gun rack inside Newbauer’s pickup. A .357-caliber handgun was also found in the rig, the report said.
Newbauer was arrested for unlawful possession of firearms. Judge Barbara Buchanan ordered Newbauer held in lieu of $10,000 bail during a brief court hearing on Monday.
A preliminary hearing on the felony charge is pending and Newbauer plans to retain private defense counsel, court records indicate.
Newbauer was charged with attempted first-degree murder following a brief gun battle with former Deputy Matt Hathaway on the lake in August 1999. Newbauer allegedly fired two rounds at the patrol boat and Hathaway returned fire, but neither man was hit by the gunfire.
Hathaway, according to newspaper accounts, contacted Newbauer because his boat was under way without the navigation lights illuminated. The stop evolved into a boating-under-the-influence investigation that went sideways.
Newbauer pleaded guilty to the lesser charge as his trial neared, according to the Idaho Supreme Court Data Repository. He was given a suspended prison term and order to serve nine months in jail, although part of the sentence was commuted for good behavior.
Hathaway resigned from the sheriff’s office in 2006.
The shooting incident came at a time when the marine patrol was under fire for being too aggressive in enforcement of boating rules. Under new management, the patrol shifted some of its emphasis from writing citations to getting boaters to willfully comply with the law through education.