Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Rape suspect pleads guilty to battery

Case weakened by felony drug charge against the victim


By TERRY SMITH
Express Staff Writer

Neftali Olmos

A Mexican citizen accused of raping a woman last year pleaded guilty Monday in Blaine County 5th District Court to a lesser charge of aggravated battery.

Twenty-two-year-old Neftali Olmos, who lived on west Glendale Road south of Bellevue, entered his guilty plea in an uncommon courtroom procedure wherein he is not required to admit to a crime.

"Even though you are not admitting that you did this, you are admitting that the state's evidence might be strong enough to convict you," Judge Robert J. Elgee told the defendant.

Olmos was originally charged in a Blaine County grand jury indictment with felony counts of rape, kidnapping and aggravated battery. The kidnapping charge was dismissed in January and the rape charge will be dropped as part of a plea agreement with the Blaine County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, which will recommend that Olmos be sentenced to 14 months in the Blaine County Jail.

Olmos got a sweeter deal from the prosecutor's office than is usually offered to defendants in violent sex-crime cases. The case against Olmos was apparently weakened by the fact that the victim, a Hispanic woman who was 18 at the time of the attack, was charged a few months later with a felony drug offense in Blaine County.

"I think it brings up some issues as far as her credibility," Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Matt Fredback told the Idaho Mountain Express following Monday's court hearing. "I think it was definitely a factor."

The case against Olmos dates back to Aug. 12 when he allegedly attacked the woman in a vehicle parked near his home on west Glendale Road. Both victim and assailant got stabbed in the altercation, she in the knee and he in the abdomen. She was later transported to St. Luke's Wood River Medical Center south of Ketchum and Olmos fled to Rupert where he was later arrested at Minidoka Memorial Hospital.

Defense attorney Andrew Parnes said his client will likely be deported to Mexico once he's released from custody.

"Mr. Olmos was in the country legally at the time," Parnes said. "He is not a U.S. citizen. He was legally here on a six-month work visa that expired in December of 2007."

Parnes also invoked, as part of the plea agreement, a seldom-used Idaho judiciary rule that allows his client to withdraw his guilty plea if the sentence exceeds the recommendation of the prosecuting attorney's office.

In addition to the 14-month jail sentence, the prosecutor's office will recommend that Olmos receive a 10-year suspended prison sentence that can be reinstated if he re-enters the United States illegally.

Olmos remains incarcerated in the Blaine County Jail on $100,000 bond. He will be given credit for the more than seven months he has already spent behind bars. Sentencing was scheduled for April 28 at 9 a.m.




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