Hearing reset in weapons case
SANDPOINT — A preliminary hearing was postponed Wednesday for a Spokane man accused of unlawfully possessing firearms in Bonner County.
The state and defense jointly agreed to postpone the hearing Danny Harold Neep’s case because discovery, the exchange of evidence in the case, is ongoing, court records show. The hearing was reset for March 7, according to court documents.
Neep, 61, is being held at the Bonner County Jail in lieu of $100,000 bail.
Neep is accused of unlawfully possessing a 20-guage shotgun and a .22-caliber rifle on Sept. 15, 2017. Neep is barred from possessing firearms due to prior felony convictions in California, court records show.
The charges against Neep coincide with the disappearance of Mirissa Serrano, a 27-year-old Montana woman. The day after she was reported missing sheriff’s deputies and Two Bear Air conducted searches along U.S. Forest Service Road No. 278, a remote route in the mountains overlooking the east side of Lake Pend Oreille, according to a Bonner 911 dispatch log. Around the time of the disappearance, Neep was stopped on Road No. 278 and was arrested for unlawful weapons possession.
Neep, court records indicate, later accompanied investigators to an area on Road No. 278 known as “the saddle” before being returned to the jail. There is no reference to Seranno’s disappearance in the arrest report.
However, Seranno’s family believes Neep is involved with the woman’s disappearance, according to social media posts and published news reports.
Bonner County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Shane Greenbank has declined to say if Neep is considered a suspect or a person of interest in Seranno’s disappearance.
Neep was convicted in a 1976 forgery case out of Placer County and a 1999 illegal weapons possession out of El Norte County.
Neep faces up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine if convicted of the possession charges. However, Neep is being prosecuted as a persistent violator due to his prior felony convictions. If convicted of the underlying charges, he faces an additional term of five years to life in prison.
Keith Kinnaird can be reached by email at kkinnaird@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow him on Twitter @KeithDailyBee.