Priest River man pleads guilty to child sex crime

SANDPOINT — Luke Daniel MacDonald, 26, plead guilty Tuesday to a charge of child rape.

The felony charge stems from a criminal complaint made three years ago.According to court records, Priest River Police Officer Chris Davis said he was told in August 2019 by a concerned adult that MacDonald and the child had been intimate repeatedly.

Davis said he confronted MacDonald about the allegations around the end of that school year. However, MacDonald said that while the child occasionally spent the night, they never slept in the same room when she stayed over, Davis said in an affidavit. He said she was like a sister to him and that he was just trying to help her through some tough times, according to the affidavit.

However, things escalated when Davis was contacted by school staff in January 2020 and told that the 13-year-old was pregnant.

Over a year later, Davis obtained a warrant for a DNA test, which concluded there was a 99.9999% likelihood that MacDonald was the child’s father.

As part of the plea deal, the prosecution agreed to recommend probation and no jail time to be served as well as requiring that he undergo a processional psychosexual evaluation and complete a treatment regimen.