Plea pact pending in Hope attack
SANDPOINT — A plea agreement is in the works for a California teen implicated in a brutal attack on a Bonner County woman last summer.
Counsel for Marshall Owens Dittrich told 1st District Judge Steve Verby that the agreement is in the process of being drafted. The proposed terms of the agreement are not being divulged yet.
Dittrich’s attorney, Michael Palmer, advised the court of the resolution during a pretrial hearing. Dittrich was scheduled to be tried next week on a charge of battery with intent to commit robbery, a felony offense punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
A plea hearing in the case is set for June 18 in 1st District Court.
The development comes about a month after an alleged accomplice, Joseph John Martin, 17, was sentenced.
Dittrich, also 17, and Martin were accused of perpetrating a tag-team beating on Vera Gadman last July. Gadman encountered the two teens hitchhiking near Clark Fork and agreed to give them a ride to find a campsite on the Hope peninsula.
Martin allegedly choked Gadman and smashed a bottle over hear head until it shattered. The teens also threw large rocks at the 66-year-old woman.
Despite the intensity of the attack, Gadman was able to escape. Martin and Dittrich, both of whom were runaways from a therapeutic boarding school in northwestern Montana, were later apprehended in a law enforcement dragnet.
Martin, of Denver, is portrayed in court document as the primary aggressor and Dittrich, of Danville, Calif., is described as a reluctant participant in the attack.
During a sentencing hearing in April, the state argued Martin should be imprisoned in an adult facility, while the defense lobbied for a juvenile setting with the potential for further incarceration at an adult prison.
Sandpoint defense attorney Bryce Powell cited peer-reviewed studies which indicated that incarcerating juveniles in adult facilities is actually counterproductive because it heightens recidivism risk. Bonner County Prosecutor Louis Marshall recommended a 20-year sentence — the maximum allowed — due to the ferocity of the attack.
Verby sentenced Martin to 15 years in adult prison with a chance at parole after three years. Verby sidestepped the defense’s recommendation for a blended sentence partly because the court would only have jurisdiction over Martin until he reaches the age of 19.
The sentencing hearing revealed an irony that Gadman for years lived in New York City, but had never been the victim of violence until she crossed paths with two runaways in rural Idaho.