Ritualized abuse case expands

SANDPOINT — A criminal case against a Bonner County man accused of perpetrating ritualized and sexual abuse expanded on Friday.

Dana Andrew Furtney initially faced five criminal charges ranging from lewd conduct to sexual battery and ritualized abuse, but the criminal complaint was supplanted Friday with a grand jury indictment alleging 10 counts of lewd conduct and lone counts of sexual abuse of a child under the age of 16, ritualized abuse, felony injury to a child and felony domestic battery causing traumatic injury.

Furtney, 48, pleaded not guilty to all 14 felony counts during his arraignment in 1st District Court on Friday, court records show. A four-day jury trial is set for February 2018.

Furtney is charged with four counts of lewd conduct against a 14-year-old girl, five counts of lewd conduct and one count of sexual abuse against a 12-year-old girl and one count of lewd conduct with a 6-year-old girl, according to the indictment. Furtney is further charged with ritualized abuse for forcing an 11- to 12-year-old boy ingest Furtney’s excrement as part of a ceremony or rite.

All of those offenses are alleged to have occurred in 2010.

Furtney is also accused of chaining the preteen boy by his neck to an unheated outhouse for multiple days in March 2013. The boy was given limited food and water during his captivity, the indictment alleges. Finally, Furtney is accused of locking his wife in a stockade, where she was beaten and made to sodomize herself with a foreign object over the course of a five-year period leading up to Furtney’s arrest earlier this fall.

The alleged crimes took place on property in the 900 block of Peninsula Loop Road north of Priest River.

Four of the alleged victims testified during the sealed grand jury proceeding. Bonner County Sheriff’s Det. Barry Reinink also testified, court records show.

Furntney, according to court documents, used manipulation and religious beliefs to control the alleged victims. Furtney also told them that Jesus approved of Furtney’s disciplinary actions and sexual contact as appropriate forms of punishment.

During his arraignment, Furtney thanked people for their attendance in court, including Prosecutor Louis Marshall, and said he had spoke to God earlier in the day, court documents indicate.

Furtney is being held at the Bonner County Jail in lieu of $500,000.

Keith Kinnaird can be reached by email at kkinnaird@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow him on Twitter @KeithDailyBee.