Lewis County Sirens.com

Jose F. Chagolla Flores and his lawyer face a judge in Lewis County Superior Court

By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Eighteen-year-old Jose F. Chagolla Flores of Onalaska is off to prison today, with an 18-month sentence for stabbing another teenager who punched him in the face in the Chehalis Wal-Mart’s parking lot.

Instead of going to trial, charged with first-degree assault, Chagolla Flores entered into a plea deal with prosecutors.

Lewis County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Will Halstead told the judge the reason: It was a case of possible self defense.

“There is evidence the victim was the aggressor,” Halstead said.

Halstead’s comments came on Tuesday morning in Lewis County Superior Court in front of Judge Andrew Toynbee.

Exactly what a group of young people were doing there the night of Oct. 5 is uncertain. Chehalis police were called about two males fighting but when officers arrived they were gone.

Seventeen-year-old Bryce Friedley of Chehalis turned up at Providence Centralia Hospital and was transferred to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

Chagolla Flores pleaded guilty to second-degree assault on Nov. 30, a felony with a standard sentencing range of three to nine months. But he pleaded guilty to the committing the crime with a deadly weapon, which means 12 more months.

Defense attorney Chris Baum told the judge it was a tough case in many ways, one in which everyone could acknowledge there was “bad blood.”

The victim’s mother tearfully addressed the court, her voice breaking as she described the trip to the trauma center in Seattle and the hours-long wait before she finally saw her son, on life support.

She addressed the defendant, telling him choices have consequences.

“You chose to use that knife as self defense,” she said. “That choice could have cost you my son’s life. I pray you learn to do better.”

Judge Toynbee pointed out that if Chagolla Flores had gone to trial and been convicted as originally charged he would have been facing a possible sentence of nine years plus nine months.

“Now we’re looking at 15 to 20 months,” he said.

“The injury to Mr. Friedley was so significant,” Toynbee said. “But I can’t isolate that from the facts of this case.”

Judge Toynbee chose the middle of the standard sentencing range, six months, plus an additional 12 months for the weapon enhancement.

Chagolla Flores will be subject to 18 months of community custody after his release. And the judge ordered no contact with the victim for 10 years.

The Oct. 5 episode was followed a week later with several of the victim’s family and friends arrested for allegedly taking baseball bats to Chagolla Flores’s 19-year-old friend in Adna. Then in mid-November, Friedley and his brother were arrested for allegedly being two of four males who initiated an armed encounter with other teenagers near Penny Playground in Chehalis.

Prosecutors have suggested there are gang overtones to the cases.
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For background read, “Chehalis Wal-Mart stabbing suspect says teen hit him first” from Tuesday October 10, 2017, here

By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – A 47-year-old Centralia man was summonsed to Lewis County Superior Court yesterday, charged with animal cruelty in a case that was discovered by a neighbor this summer.

A Centralia animal control officer was dispatched to a home on South Buckner Street, where a woman said her neighbor had not been around for days, his dogs had been barking for hours and when she checked, she found they were without food or water, according to court papers.

Four exotic birds in cages at the front window inside the home had only empty water dishes and empty shells in their food dishes. One, an African Gray parrot, was laying face down and deceased the documents relate.

The owner, Llewellyn A. Roy, was located at the Lewis County Jail, where he been booked after an arrest more than three days earlier.

Charging documents state a necropsy showed the parrot had died of dehydration and starvation.

The neighbor described a bull dog which seemed in better condition than two very thin Mastiff’s with eye infections, one of them in an kennel with a floor compacted with feces, and open sores on its legs, according to the allegations.

Animal Control Officer Jennifer Krueger reported the shape the animals were in would have taken weeks to develop.

Roy is charged with first-degree animal cruelty and second-degree animal cruelty.

When he arrived to the courtroom yesterday afternoon, he used a walker.

Temporary defense attorney Kevin Nelson told the judge Roy owns his home and makes about $2,000 a month, but medical and living expenses take up all of it. He was assigned a court-appointed lawyer.

Lewis County Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Brad Meagher asked that  Roy be allowed release on a $5,000 unsecured bond. Judge Joely O’Rourke agreed.

After the brief court hearing, outside the courtroom, Roy said he didn’t want to comment on his case, but said there was “more” to it.

Charging documents indicate the call to animal control came on July 19, a Wednesday at mid-morning. Centralia police had arrested for Roy for driving under the influence on Plum Street just before midnight on Saturday, July 15, and booked him into jail, according to the Centralia Police Department.

Animal Control Officer Krueger reported that after she first spoke to the neighbor, and learned the dogs had been given water, she contacted Roy at the jail asking permission to go into his home to care for the animals, according to charging documents.

He told her he wanted his parents to take care of them, but when she contacted the parents, they wanted nothing to do with it, the documents relate.

Krueger stated in her report that when she and another officer entered the home, she was hit with the stench of dirty dog, cigarettes, urine and feces. She observed garbage all over the floor and a small table in front of a chair that was covered with prescription bottles and beer cans.

The bird cages had not been cleaned in a long time, which contributed to the smell in the house, Lewis County Deputy Prosecutor Paul Masiello wrote in the court documents.

The animals were taken so they could be cared for, according to Masiello.

Roy’s arraignment is scheduled for Thursday.

Updated

By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – An individual was robbed of his wallet, money and car after being struck over the head with a pistol yesterday in Centralia and five suspects are at large, according to the Centralia Police Department.

Centralia police called just after noon yesterday to a motel on the 700 block of Harrison Avenue were told a male fled in the victim’s black 1995 Suburban, while three females and another male left in separate vehicle, according to police.

The suspects are described as in their late teens to early 20s.

The missing Suburban has a Washington license plate reading BIA4104, according to police.

The victim, a man in his 30s, sustained a non-life threatening injury to his head and was treated at the scene, according to Sgt. Dave Clary.

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CORRECTION: This news item has been updated to correct the number of suspects police are looking for.

Jason Estimo and his son Buddy play with Hank on the floor. / Courtesy photo by Jan Propp-Estimo

By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Lawyers involved in the case of Hank the Centralia dog are meeting for mediation on the matter this week.

Lewis County Civil Deputy Prosecutor David Fine said yesterday that he, attorney John Justice and animal attorney Adam Karp will meet with a mediator on Friday afternoon in Olympia.

A preliminary injunction was issued on Oct. 18, allowing the pit bull terrier to be freed while the case continued in the courts.

Hank the dog went home to his Centralia family that day.

Jann Propp-Estimo adopted the animal from the Lewis County Animal Shelter in January, but the county impounded him in May, after discovering Hank was actually a dog named Tank which the county had previously designated a dangerous dog because he was implicated with his mother in the killing of two goats in Winlock last year, and was destined to be put down.

Propp-Estimo and her lawyer have been fighting in court since then to prevent the dog from being euthanized.

She says he is doing well.

“He’s very happy,” Propp-Estimo said today. “He came away a little bit needy from the shelter, but we just keep working on that.”

Fine declined to discuss further the planned mediation.

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Hank on his way home the day he was sprung from the Lewis County Animal Shelter in October. / Courtesy photo by Jan Propp-Estimo

Aaron Hendricks and David McLeskey, seated, face a judge in Lewis County Superior Court

By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – A 35-year-old man, his father-in-law and a companion are charged with first-degree animal cruelty and other offenses for allegedly hunting bobcats with dogs in East Lewis County and allowing the canines at least once to maul their wounded target.

The evidence in the case comes from videos on a JVC camcorder seized from the Woodland home of Aaron B. Hendricks earlier this year and an interview with his now-11-year-old daughter who accompanied them on the outings, according to the allegations in court documents.

It was the huge poaching investigation that began in the Dalles, Oregon last year and resulted in numerous defendants charged in Skamania County that yielded evidence that led to the three men, Lewis County Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Brad Meagher said today.

Hendricks and David R. McLeskey, 58, both of Woodland, went before a judge this afternoon in Lewis County Superior Court.

They had been summonsed to appear.

Meagher told the judge both defendants have no criminal history and asked they be allowed release conditions with $5,000 unsecured bonds.

They are charged with first-degree animal cruelty – a felony with a maximum penalty of five years in prison – with unlawful hunting black bear, cougar, bobcat or lynx with dogs, and with second-degree unlawful hunting of wild animals.

None were properly licensed to hunt wildlife, specifically bobcats or bobcats using dogs, according to charging documents.

Hendricks and McLeskey pleaded not guilty.

Yakima lawyer Richard Smith, representing Hendricks, told the judge  that since the search warrant was served in March at his client’s home, he contacted every law enforcement officer in the other case to let them know they were available for questioning.

“Ultimately seven people were charged, we weren’t,” Smith said.

He said he reached out to Meagher to get his client’s case taken care of.

Judge Joely O’Rourke ordered the two men to get finger printed and photographed at the Lewis County Jail before Jan. 1.

She imposed no travel restrictions as they both work across state lines and granted Meagher’s request not to impose standard firearms prohibitions while their cases are pending.

The men waived their speedy trial rights to allow for the schedule of one of their lawyers. They were ordered to return to court on Feb. 8 to set their trial dates.

The two defense lawyers outside the courtroom didn’t want to answer reporters’ questions, but before the elevator doors finished closing, one of them stated: “We’re not connected to all that other stuff.”

McLeskey’s attorney is Stephen Hormel, out of Spokane.

Charging papers in the case describe how digital evidence in the original Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife case identified several additional suspects and co-conspirators in those unlawful hunts, including Hendricks and his father-in-law McLeskey.

The videos found at Hendricks residence in March were examined and showed the two men as well as Aaron C. Hanson, 38, of Kelso, participating in two bob cat hunts in Lewis County, according to the documents. Also present were Hendricks 9-year-old daughter and 10-year-old stepson, the documents relate.

The two unlawful hunts allegedly occurred on Nov. 27, 2015, near National Forest Service Roads 85 and 84, north of the Randle area.

“The video of the first hunt shows Hendricks walking on a snow covered logging road in snow early in the morning holding the camcorder,” Meagher wrote in the affidavit regarding probable cause.

Meagher writes that several dogs can be heard barking and the defendant pans the camcorder to a GPS device to record their location.

Subsequent video shows a bob cat up a tree with numerous barking dogs at the base, then Hanson posing with the dead wild cat, according to Meagher.

The second video is similar, showing a bob cat shot twice, pushed out the tree and immediately surrounded by dogs, Meagher states.

“(T)he video shows the bob cat attempting to defend itself, but the dogs begin to bite, pull, and crush the bobcat to death with undue suffering,” Meagher wrote.

In May, when Hendricks’ daughter was interviewed by law enforcement at her mother’s home in Longview, the videos were played for her and she was asked to identify those who were present.

She points out her dad, her grandfather and her dad’s friend, according to Meagher.

The friend, Hanson from Kelso, is expected to appear before a judge in Lewis County Superior Court tomorrow afternoon.

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By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – A 22-year-old Centralia man arrested this summer for alleged events at a party two years ago has been found not guilty of rape.

Edgar Ramirez-Dado was acquitted of second-degree rape and third-degree rape by a jury in Lewis County Superior Court following a three-day trial.

Ramirez-Dado was arrested on June 5 outside the Apex market on the 400 block of West Main Street in Centralia for allegedly planning to sell a little baggie of weed to two boys, ages 16 and 14, according to court documents. He was taken into custody also for an outstanding warrant issued late last year when a charge of second-degree rape was filed in a case investigated by the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office.

Charging documents indicated a sheriff’s deputy met with a 26-year-old woman in mid-December 2015 when she described a party the night before with a lot of people in which she and her friend consumed a large amount of alcohol.

Lewis County Deputy Prosecutor Melissa Bohm wrote in charging documents the alleged victim recalled Ramirez-Dado pulling her panties off from beneath her dress and her telling him no and to stop, but she was too weak and drunk to push him away, and that she was raped.

Ramirez-Dado was initially held on $100,000 and $50,000 bail for the two cases, but court documents show his conditions of release were later lowered to an unsecured bond.

The rape trial began on Nov. 6, a Monday, and ended two days later. An amended information filed corrected the alleged victim’s age at the time of the incident to 17.

The jury deliberated a little more than two hours before reaching a verdict of not guilty.

His other case has not concluded. In that case, he was charged with possession of marijuana with intent to deliver and involving a minor in drug dealing.

That arrest came about when a school resource officer alerted a Centralia drug detective about an arrangement  to buy $10 worth of marijuana made through a messaging app on a Centralia Middle School-issued iPad. Detectives followed a boy to the convenience store, where they found Ramirez-Dado.

Ramirez-Dado has pleaded not guilty.
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For background, read “Chehalis man picked up on $100,000 warrant for alleged sexual assault” from Tuesday June 6, 2017, here