Havre man pleads guilty in sex assault

A Havre man has pleaded guilty to raping a 7-year-old girl in 2005.

Jacob Walker, born in 1985, had asked Judge Daniel Boucher, to dismiss the charges against him, but ended up pleading to a reduced charge.

Walker pleaded guilty to sexual assault when the victim was 7 and he was three or more years older.

State District Judge Dan Boucher ordered a presentencing investigation be conducted and set sentencing for Jan. 12. The sentencing range, with an enhancement for the age of the victim, is 4 to 100 years.

Walker had argued that charges should be dismissed — he was charged t last January with two counts of sexual intercourse without consent — because the charges had not been filed for four years after the accusation came forward in 2010. He said in briefs supporting the motion that defense would be difficult to present due to witness’ memories dimming and difficulty finding evidence due to the delay.

The Hill County Deputy Attorney prosecuting the case, Ed Hirsch, said he did not have knowledge why the previous prosecutor had not indicted Walker earlier, but after he took over the case he moved to filing charges as soon as he was able. High case loads led to some delays, and no malice was involved in the delayed charges, he wrote.

Before the hearing on the motion to dismiss occurred this week, Walker signed the plea agreement and the court proceeding turned into a change-of-plea hearing.

The investigation started in 2010 when a man contacted Havre police officers to report a possible rape. The girl was back with her mother and siblings from California, where they had moved. The man said the girl refused to be around Walker while a photograph was being posed and taken, a court document says.

Another person present told the man that Walker had sexually assaulted the girl, the document says.

The girl told the man that Walker would touch her when he would visit, both before and after school, the document says. The girl was 7 at the time she said the incidents occurred.

The document says the girl was interviewed in 2011 by an investigator for California law enforcement, and was able to describe two specific incidents of abuse.

One was while she was riding in a car Walker was driving in 2005.

The other was when Davis took the girl with him to his residence to pick up some ingredients for a dish being cooked for a Thanksgiving dinner. She was sitting on the couch watching television and Davis came out of his kitchen and raped her, she said. The document says she told the investigator that Walker took her back to the family gathering after the rape.