School drawn into lawsuit

SANDPOINT — A Bonner County woman who is suing two teens who brutally attacked her is also seeking damages from the therapeutic boarding school they ran away from.

Counsel for Vera Gadman argues the Explorations school was negligent for allowing Marshall Owens Dittrich and Joseph John Martin to slip away from its campus in Trout Creek, Mont.

Gadman encountered the duo hitchhiking near Clark Fork and agreed to give them a ride to a campsite on the Hope Peninsula in July 2011. Martin and Dittrich allegedly choked Gadman into unconsciousness, attempted to strangle her and hit her in the head with a bottle and other objects.

Gadman managed to escape and Martin and Dittrich, both 17, were later arrested following a sheriff’s dragnet. The two were charged as adults with battery with intent to commit robbery and pleaded guilty.

Martin, of Denver, was ordered to serve three to 15 years in prison. He is imprisoned at the Idaho Correctional Center in Kuna, according to the Idaho Department of Correction. Martin is eligible for parole next year.

Dittrich, of Danville, Calif., was ordered to serve 10 years in prison, but was released onto probation last February.

Gadman’s Coeur d’Alene attorney, James Bendell, filed suit against the teens last year and successfully amended the complaint to include a prayer for punitive damages, 1st District Court documents indicate. The civil complaint was amended a third time last month to include Explorations as a defendant.

Bendell said staff at Explorations, operated by Phoenix Mountain Collaborative, was aware the teens intended to bolt from the facility, according to the amended complaint. The teens’ shoes were confiscated, although they were later returned to them, the complaint said.

After their escape, school staff came to Bonner County to look for the runaways, but neglected to notify law enforcement of the escape.

“The consequences to the Sandpoint community of having escapees from Trout Creek is obvious,” Bendell said in the complaint.

A trial date in 1st District Court is pending.