Sex, lies and videotape

SANDPOINT — A Coeur d’Alene man accused of blackmailing women by threatening to publicize sex tapes he made with them is being pulled back into court to face probation violations in a felony domestic assault case.

Lonnie Lee Allen was charged with second-degree kidnapping and attempted strangulation following a domestic dispute with a former lover along U.S. Highway 2 in August 2010.

During the assault, Allen allegedly threatened to publicize a sex tape they made together.

Court documents indicated Allen was wanted in Iowa on extortion charges and that he possessed more than 20 videotapes of him having sex with various women, at least two of whom were unaware of the recordings.

After spending nearly five months in jail, Allen entered into a plea agreement in which he pled to the attempted strangulation charge and in exchange for dismissal of the kidnapping charge. Under the terms of the plea, Allen admitted no wrongdoing, but conceded a jury could convict him of the offense to which he pleaded.

Allen was given a suspended one- to three-year prison sentence and placed on probation. A condition of his probation required him to return to Iowa to answer to the extortion charge, but the case was subsequently dropped.

Allen allegedly claimed the Iowa case was dropped because it was merely a “misunderstanding,” but his probation officer contends the woman urged the case be dropped due to concerns that her family would learn of the explicit videotape.

Other conditions of his release forbid him from consuming alcohol or frequenting bars. He was also required to submit to polygraph examinations at the direction of his probation officer.

But the Idaho Department of Correction contends he violated the alcohol-related conditions while traveling in the Midwest several months after his release in Idaho.

Allen was punched out in a bar in northwestern Illinois by a husband of one of his clandestine lovers on May 24, according to a police report from Galena, Ill. Although Allen did not want charges pressed, the cuckold who slugged him was arrested for disturbing the peace.

Idaho probation officials further allege that Allen failed two polygraph examinations when he returned to Idaho this summer, court records show.

The polygraphs questioned whether Allen had been in contact with his alleged victims and if he had received any money from them. Allen answered “no,” to the questions, but the queries evoked strong, “consistent unresolved physiological responses,” one the polygrapher’s reports said.

Allen’s probation officer, Marla Howard, is calling for a hearing in 1st District Court to determine if there were violations, which could result in the imposition of the suspended sentence or other sanctions.

Howard argues Allen has a history of extorting money from women by using the videos he made of women in compromising positions.

“Moreover, he fails to see any of these women as victims,” Howard said in her report.