Lewis County Sirens.com

Jence S. Sawyer, left, and his attorney Don Blair listen to the prosecutor during proceedings today in Lewis County Superior Court.

By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – A former Chehalis area man was grilled in court by a judge today, through his attorney, about how he got a court appointed lawyer if he was earning as much as $20 an hour in North Dakota before his recent arrest.

Court-appointed attorney Don Blair had just told the judge his client spent the last year and a half working 12-hour days, seven days a week as a carpenter. The Centralia attorney was explaining his request to lower the bail for Jence S. Sawyer, from $150,000 to $20,000.

“So why are you appointed then,” Lewis County Superior Court Judge Nelson Hunt asked.

Blair said he didn’t inquire as to why.

“Where did the money go,” Hunt asked.

Blair, as he queried his 23-year-old client, relayed to the judge a “bunch” was paid to a collection agency, and some spent on a new work truck that is sitting in the sheriff’s impound lot in North Dakota.

“Well, I’m going to be looking into this,” Hunt said.

Sawyer was in court this morning for his arraignment on two separate cases, one involving an underage girl and the other involving his estranged girlfriend, alleged to have occurred a year or so ago. He was charged last summer, but deputies only recently located him in Williston, North Dakota.

Lewis County sheriff’s deputies picked him this weekend and brought him back to Lewis County.

Sawyer is charged with second-degree assault and unlawful imprisonment, with sexual motivation, for a May 2014 incident in which he allegedly wouldn’t let his former girlfriend leave his home, although she finally was able to flee with her baby through a window.

He is also charged with third-degree rape of a child for an alleged encounter in November 2013 with a 15-year-old girl he befriended in Packwood.

Sawyer pleaded not guilty this morning and his trial was scheduled for the week of March 2. He has no prior felony history.

Judge Hunt did not reduce his bail.
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For background, read “Wanted Chehalis man found in North Dakota” from Monday January 12, 2015, here

Phillip A. Pinotti pleads guilty today as charged for December Centralia Municipal Court incident

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Originally charged with trying to run down a court security officer, a 22-year-old Adna man instead was convicted today of three misdemeanors and sentenced to time served.

Phillip A. Pinotti drew gunfire when he fled an attempted arrest on a misdemeanor warrant in Centralia last month, on foot and then in his car. The bullet shattered his driver’s window and glass fragments cut his face, but he was otherwise unharmed.

Last week, prosecutors dismissed a charge of first-degree assault and replaced it with obstructing, a gross misdemeanor, saying they concluded Pinotti had no intent to injure the officer.

Centralia Court Security Officer Steve Howard said after Pinotti started his engine, the car jerked forward, and he thought he was going to be hit. Pinotti said he put it in reverse and hit the gas as hard as he could.

No other witnesses spoke of the car moving forward.

Howard wasn’t injured either. His use of deadly force was found to be lawful.

Today, Pinotti was in Lewis County Superior Court to plead guilty to obstructing, third-degree escape and tampering with evidence.

Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer told the judge the state’s position is the evidence in the case did not reveal an assault.

He recommended a sentence of 364 days, with all but six days suspended, giving Pinotti credit for time served in the jail.

“Frankly Mr. Pinotti is lucky,” Meyer said. “He’s lucky he’s even sitting here. He’s lucky he’s not dead.”

Defense attorney Don Blair said he agreed with the sentence.

“I agree, and Phillip agrees, what he did back on the 16th was stupid,” Blair said.

Blair said clearly it was a bad decision on his client’s part, but one he will have learned from.

Judge Nelson Hunt read aloud Pinotti’s written confession, about his flight from Centralia Municipal Court and Officer Howard.

“I went out of the courtroom and ran to my car and did not stop when an officer told me to stop,” Hunt read. “I had my friends park my mother’s car in the garage.”

The judge asked Pinotti if those were his words, and numerous other questions. Pinotti addressed the judge as sir with each reply.

Pinotti’s only previous conviction was a misdemeanor.

When the hearing was over, Pinotti was escorted back to the jail, where he is being held on charges filed last week for alleged delivery of heroin while he was out on bail, and for possessing a large amount of heroin last summer.

His arraignment on those charges is scheduled for tomorrow.
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For background, read “Charge of assault that prompted officer to shoot, dropped for Adna resident” from Thursday January 8, 2015, here

Jeff Fosburg poses outside the Mossyrock Fire Department for a photo in October.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

A potentially fatal form of pneumonia has struck an otherwise healthy 28-year-old volunteer firefighter from Mossyrock.

Jeff Fosburg, a bachelor with a St. Bernard as a roommate was fine until he suddenly took ill early last month, according to his father.

“He was getting a cold,” Mossyrock Fire Chief Doug Fosburg said of his grown son. “It went from just a cold on a Friday afternoon, to being in ICU at Providence on Tuesday.”

That was Dec. 9.

Doctors found the younger Fosburg had contracted MRSA  pneumonia in both lungs. The MRSA bacteria is the strain which is resistant to most antibiotics, his father said.

They don’t know how he caught it, but he works at the Lucky Eagle Casino as a security guard, and is around a lot of people, the chief said.

Jeff was transferred to a Vancouver hospital, and then shortly after to a Portland hospital equipped to deal with the unusual illness. It’s only the sixth or seventh case of this type they’ve ever treated, he said.

He’s improving Chief Fosburg said this morning, but isn’t expected to be well enough to go home for two to three months, he said.

“He’s getting better, but he’s still on a ventilator, and still at Legacy,” Fosburg said. “If he hadn’t have been as healthy as he was, he probably wouldn’t have survived it.”

It’s going to be a long road to recovery, even after he’s released, he said.

One of his co-workers at the Mossyrock Fire Department has set up an account to assist with paying Jeff’s ongoing household bills while he is not working.

Jeff has health insurance, but his neighboring firefighters in Salkum are putting together a benefit to raise money, as it could be as long as six months before he’s able to work, according to Byron Peck, president of the Salkum Volunteer Firefighter and EMS Association.

Chief Fosburg said he understands that is aimed at helping out with excess health care costs.

Salkum firefighters say that any donations for their silent auction can be brought to their main station on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. until Feb. 5. That’s at 2490 U.S. Highway 12 in Salkum.

The auction and spaghetti dinner fundraiser will be held at the same location, on Saturday Feb. 7, from 5 p.m. until 8 p.m.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

A Centralia man was killed in a logging accident over the weekend southwest of Oakville.

The Grays Harbor County Sheriff’s Office said it happened in the Minot area on the Brooklyn T-Line Road. They were called at 11:15 a.m. on Saturday.

Erin L. VanBrocklin, 41, had been bucking a log and a crew was rigging up a yarder, according to the sheriff’s office.

A log broke loose and it rolled downhill crushing the victim between it and the log he was working on, Undersheriff Dave Pimentel said.

Pimentel said co-workers had to cut VanBrocklin out, and they placed him a stretcher and drove six miles to where they met an ambulance at where the T-Line meets Brooklyn Road.

“He was tended to by an aid crew and pronounced dead,” Pimentel said.

Grays Harbor County Fire District 1 Firefighter Shawn Burdett said members of Centralia’s fire department were first on the scene. Responders continued CPR until medics arrived, Burdett said.

He was working for B and M Logging, according to the Department of Labor and Industries. The state agency is investigating the death.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – A 23-year-old man was returned to Lewis County from North Dakota this weekend on warrants from last summer when he was charged with two separate sexually motivated crimes, one involving an underage girl and the other involving his estranged girlfriend.

The alleged incidents took place in November 2013 and the following May. Deputies were unable to locate Jence S. Sawyer until now and traveled to Williston, North Dakota on Thursday to bring him back, according to authorities.

On May 16, a deputy spoke with Sawyer’s estranged girlfriend, who described how she finally crawled out a bedroom window with her baby after Sawyer refused to let her leave his home, tried to have sex with her and assaulted her, according to charging documents.

The Chehalis area resident is being held on $150,000 bail.

The former girlfriend said she had gone to visit Sawyer so he could see their baby, and when she declined his advances, he held her in various ways including locking the front door, picking up the baby and saying she could not go and even pulling her back through a window by her ankles, before slapping and choking her, charging documents allege.

The documents don’t say how long it went on but indicate it was her third attempt to leave by the window that was successful.

Charging documents say she took her baby, ran into the bedroom and locked the door behind her. Once outside, she ran through bushes, grass and through a ditch up to Jackson Highway where she flagged down a passing motorist and police were contacted, the documents state.

The sheriff’s office reported in May the two were arguing over infidelity and at one point, the incident included Sawyer holding a rifle to his chin.

Sawyer is charged with second-degree assault and unlawful imprisonment, with sexual motivation.

According to charging documents in the other case, the sheriff’s office took a report last April from a 15-year-old girl at White Pass High School about a sexual encounter she said took place five months earlier, in which she said she told Sawyer several times to stop and he refused. For that, he is charged with third-degree rape of a child.

Charges in both cases were filed on Aug. 21. Sawyer was booked into the Lewis County Jail on Saturday and was brought before a judge this afternoon.

Defense attorney Joely O’Rourke told the judge that Sawyer was recently employed, but is now not working and has no prior felony history.

Lewis County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Will Halstead said he has a pending drug charge.

Lewis County Superior Court Judge Richard Brosey appointed Centralia attorney Don Blair to represent him. Sawyer’s arraignment is scheduled for Thursday morning.

The judge ordered him to have no contact with minors.

Updated at 6:28 p.m.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – One of a pair of fisherman who went into the river after their boat began taking on water this afternoon died despite efforts to save him.

It happened on the Chehalis River about 10 miles west west of Chehalis, near Dryad.

“Two guys, friends, were fishing in a little 12-foot aluminum boat and they hit some rapids,” Lewis County Sheriff’s Office Chief Civil Deputy Stacy Brown said.

The men jumped into the water when their boat began to sink, according to Brown.

“The one who was wearing a life jacket survived; the one who wasn’t did not,” she said.

The survivor was able to find his friend, drag him to shore and performed CPR for 20 to 30 minutes, according to Brown.

When that didn’t work, he swam back across the river and found a bicyclist riding along a trail to use a cell phone to call 911 for help, she said.

It happened about 11:40 a.m., according to Brown.

Deputies and aid were called at 12:36 a.m. to the area near the 400 block of River Road, according to Brown.

Members of Lewis County Fire Districts 6, 11 and 16 responded, but there was no resuscitating the man, Firefighter Kyle DePriest said.

The men’s ages and hometowns are not yet available. The survivor was transported to Providence Centralia Hospital to be treated for hypothermia, according to Lewis County Fire District 6.
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CORRECTION: This has been updated to correctly reflect that the sheriff’s office and aid were dispatched at the same time; and that the survivor said the initial incident took place at 11:40 a.m.

Phillip A. Pinotti, 22, of Adna, is locked up again, now on drug charges.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – The arrest on drug charges last night of 22-year-old Phillip A. Pinotti stem from a “reliable and credible source” who purchased heroin from Pinotti on an unspecified recent day while police secretly observed and also from an incident police recently told prosecutors about that occurred back in August, according to court documents.

Pinotti was free on bail, but prepared to plead guilty next week for the events of Dec. 16 when he fled as he was being arrested on a misdemeanor warrant, and was shot at by a Centralia Municipal Court security officer.

Lewis County Superior Court Judge Nelson Hunt this afternoon ordered the Adna resident held on $75,000 bail on each of the two new separate cases.

He was charged today for the August incident with possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver.

According to charging documents, Centralia police had him and another man under surveillance as they went to Longview to purchase heroin, and subsequently impounded the vehicle and found heroin, smoking devices and a digital scale. The documents make no mention of either man getting arrested.

The documents do note law enforcement declined to allow Pinotti to work for them in consideration of potential charges.

Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer told Judge Hunt police sent the case to his office on Dec. 28.

Pinotti was also charged with possession of heroin and delivery of heroin, for an alleged deal that took place on an unspecified date while Pinotti was under police surveillance. The documents state only that it occurred sometime between Dec. 20 and Jan. 8.

Yesterday, he was stopped and arrested in his parent’s car and reportedly confessed he had just bought some heroin in Centralia, delivered it to a friend and pinched off a chunk for himself, charging documents state.

A brief summary of the arrest from Centralia Police Department Sgt. Jim Shannon indicates the arrest was associated with the 1500 block of South Gold Street in Centralia.

In the car, police also found a digital scale, two heroin injection kits and a police scanner, with the capability of listening to Centralia police, according to the court documents.

Defense attorney Joely O’Rourke this afternoon asked for $25,000 total in bail, noting the young man lives with his parents and has only one misdemeanor on his record, from 2009.

In asking for high bail, Prosecutor Meyer noted one issue came before the escape attempt but the other came afterward.

“After being released on bail, he continued to commit crimes,” Meyer said. “In fact, was found with heroin in his possession; I would say there are significant drug abuse issues.”

Pinotti is scheduled for arraignment next Thursday.
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For background, read “Charge of assault that prompted officer to shoot, dropped for Adna resident” from Thursday January 8, 2015, here