Suspect bails on bench trial

SANDPOINT — A no-bond arrest warrant is being issued for a Priest Lake man who was a no-show at the start of his bench trial on charges of rape and lewd conduct on Thursday.

William Scott Wegner’s $10,000 is also being forfeited, according to 1st District Court records.

Wegner’s two-day court trial has been vacated.

Wegner was staying with his son in Spokane after his bail was reduced in June. His son, however, said he hadn’t heard from or seen his father in the days leading up to the trial. Wegner’s son said a message left on his father’s phone was not returned, court records indicate.

A Bonner County grand jury indicted Wegner, 40, on two counts of lewd and lascivious conduct and one count of rape earlier this year. He is accused of molesting a 5-year-old girl in March 2018. He’s further accused of molesting and raping another girl from 2017 to 2019, when she was between the ages 12-14, according to the unsealed indictment.

Wegner. 40, was originally being held on $100,000 bail, prompting Public Defender Serra Woods to move that he be released on his own recognizance because Wegner was a disabled indigent with health problems, according to court documents. Bonner County Prosecutor Louis Marshall objected to a bond reduction because of Wegner’s ability to live off the grid and questioned whether Wegner was malingering, records show.

Judge Barbara Buchanan declined to grant Wegner an own-recognizance release, but did lower his bond to $10,000, court documents indicate.

Wegner is the second Bonner County sex crime suspect to apparently flee the area to avoid prosecution.

Kenneth Bernard Kimbley III, a 36-year-old Spirit Lake resident, is apparently in the wind after he managed to sidestep a court-ordered requirement that he wear a GPS monitoring bracelet if he was able to post a $10,000 bail.

Kimbley, an indictment alleges, molested a girl who was 6-9 years old and a boy who was between the ages of 8-11 from 2011 to 2014.

The alleged misconduct took place at residences in Bonner and Kootenai counties, in addition to a storage unit in Kootenai County. In total, he faces nine counts of lewd conduct.

Kimbley failed to turn up at a pretrial conference in the case on Oct. 25.

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