HasEagle changes plea in rape case

A former law enforcement officer who absconded from an alleged rape changed his plea to a reduced charge in that case.

Donald J. HasEagle, born in 1988, pleaded no contest in state District Court to a felony charge of aggravated assault. That charge was amended from sexual intercourse without consent.

District Judge Dan Boucher ordered a presentence investigation including a psychosexual assault and set sentencing for Nov. 3.

In March, Boucher revoked a deferred imposition imposed for HasEagle’s pleading guilty in an agreement in 2012 to assault and resentenced him to five years with the state Department of Corrections.

HasEagle was charged with rape in May 2013 after a woman said that while she was having consensual sex with him after a party April 14, 2013, he forced her to have sex with him in ways she did not want, saying “he took it too far.”

Officers searched for HasEagle but were unable to locate him. In December, a federal marshal’s warrant for $100,000 was issued for his arrest. In late December, seven months after the arrest warrant on the rape charge was issued, he was arrested in Havre.

In the 2011 charge, HasEagle was arrested after a woman called Havre police about 3:30 a.m. Nov. 7, 2011, to say HasEagle had drawn his service revolver and threatened her while he was drunk.

Officers, who knew HasEagle was a police officer at Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation, found him in the woman’s residence, asleep and holding the woman’s crying 6-month-old baby and holding his service revolver.

If he had abided by all conditions of his release on that sentence, after the probationary period he could have petitioned to have the felony charge, amended from assault with a weapon to criminal endangerment, struck from his record.

He was charged with multiple violations of his release in the deferred imposition of sentence, including drinking illegally several times, leaving his residence without permission, that he lied to law enforcement and failing to appear at meetings and hearings including for a driving under the influence charge in Fort Belknap Indian Reservation tribal court, and failing to attend required counseling for addiction and mental health.

When he found HasEagle had violated conditions of his release, Boucher said he did not consider the then-pending rape charge. He recommended DOC screen HasEagle and place him in appropriate treatment during the five-year sentence.