Dasen given two years

Kalispell businessman Dick Dasen Sr., 62, will spend less than two years in prison

on one misdemeanor and five felony sex charges.

Kalispell businessman Dick Dasen Sr., 62, will spend less than two years in prison on one misdemeanor and five felony sex charges.

The sum of all the sentences is 20 years with 18 suspended. Dasen won't be eligible for parole until he serves two years, minus the 120 or so days he's been in jail since a Flathead County jury convicted him in May.

Sentencing District Judge Stewart Stadler told Dasen on Monday that he doesn't believe much of how Dasen has portrayed himself.

"You still don't feel you did anything wrong," Stadler told Dasen.

Dasen didn't testify at the sentencing hearing.

While it is Dasen's first conviction of anything more than a traffic ticket and Montana law governs sentencing of nonviolent offenders, Stadler said there would be no justice if Dasen were able to simply move to Arizona as he wishes and start his life over, with no prison time.

He sentenced Dasen to two years at Montana State Prison for felony prostitution. Dasen received one three-year suspended sentence to the Department of Corrections for a second charge of felony prostitution and one five-year suspended sentence for a third; they will run consecutively. For a misdemeanor count of prostitution, Dasen received a six-month suspended jail sentence. For sexual abuse of children - a felony, for taking sexual pictures of underage girls - and for promotion of prostitution, Stadler sentenced Dasen to 10 years and suspended both sentences.

Dasen is accused of spending millions of dollars on sex with women, mostly methamphetamine addicts. About 20 of them have been convicted of prostitution.

He was arrested after former Kalispell policeman Kevin McCarvel's drug investigations kept leading to Dasen's name as a funding source. Eventually, police arrested Dasen at a Kalispell motel, where they taped an encounter between him and a woman who said he had often paid her for sex.

Susan Dasen, who has been married to Dasen for 43 years and has four children with him, testified that her husband "was living a life that wasn't who he was." He has admitted having numerous affairs.

She said Dasen was relieved when he was arrested.

"He couldn't make it quit. It was a situation he couldn't get out of," she said.

She said she has "seen every picture. I've read every interview because I have to know" all the evidence in the case, she said. Her husband harbors no anger towards the women, but told her he feels "awful they feel the need to lie."

She said if they move away, no one will able to "talk him into anything" he shouldn't do.

And she said that despite information from the prosecution, Dasen hasn't hidden millions of dollars away. There have been allegations that Dasen sold their house to her for $10 and moved around millions of dollars from stock sales.

"We never ever saw a penny of that," she said of the sales.

Dasen's daughter Sissy Hashley said her father is very remorseful for what he did.

"We would like a chance to heal," she said.

Dasen made "one big mistake," but that "does not make him evil."

The Rev. Darold Reiner has known Dasen for 25 years through Trinity Lutheran Church.

Dasen is a godly man, he said, who has helped hundreds of people.

"He has a good heart, a kind heart … I think he has suffered enough for what he has done," Reiner said.

He repeatedly said that Dasen had "been led into" his transgressions.

"He was led astray," Reiner said. The women came to him to ask for favors, not vice versa, he said.

"He came up to see me with tears in his eyes, confessing that he had sinned," Reiner said of Dasen after the police sting at the motel.

He called Dasen's actions "moral wrong-doing" and said "the media exaggerated" the story.

But he acknowledged that he didn't know anything about Dasen's secret activities until Dasen's arrest was imminent and Dasen confessed.

Dr. James Myers of Libby evaluated Dasen and said he is "most definitely" a sex addict.

"He was out of control," Myers said of Dasen when he was arrested.

However, he said Dasen is not "such a risk to the community he has to be imprisoned."

As a low to moderate risk to reoffend, Dasen could be treated on an outpatient basis for sex-offender treatment, Myers said.

But Dave Castro of the parole and probation officer disagreed. He recommended a 20-year-sentence with 10 suspended.

In reaching that recommendation, he considered Dasen's lack of a criminal history, interviews with him and his wife, input from witnesses and victims, Myers' sex-offender evaluation, consistency with previous sentences, the nature and degree of harm he caused, and its impact on the community.

Castro talked about Dasen's lack of empathy and lack of remorse.

He acknowledged that Dasen has been a generous benefactor to the community for years, but said a person in Dasen's position has a responsibility to not abuse it. Dasen has been a successful businessman and developer who has been honored for his civic contributions.

McCarvel testified about his investigation into Dasen's activities, blaming Dasen for funding the use of methamphetamine in the Flathead.

"It's the devil, and the devil has come to our community," McCarvel said of the drug.

He scoffed at the idea that Dasen was unaware that the money he gave women - some of them more than $100,000 - was going toward illegal drug purchases.

"I can't believe that. Mr. Dasen knew these women and came in contact with these women in the most intimate ways," he said.

"It boggles my mind" that Dasen refers to "helping" the women, whose ragged lives were fueled by money from Dasen's accounts, McCarvel said.

They were the "polar opposite" of Dasen and his wealth. They lived in their cars. They were dirty. They didn't eat. And they traded sex for money with Dasen so they could buy drugs, McCarvel has said.

"What bothers me the most about this case is the lack of accountability" from Dasen, he said.

McCarvel said he has seen the pornographic pictures Dasen paid two underage girls to participate in.

"These are children," he said.

"I believe Mr. Dasen needs to go to prison" for "the damage that is so far-reaching in this community."

So does prosecuting Deputy County Attorney Dan Guzynski, who said Dasen endangered the community by having "unprotected sex with dozens and dozens of women," who were mostly intravenous drug users.

It is difficult to sentence first-time offenders involved in non-violent offenses to prison, even if their crimes are heinous. State sentencing guidelines restrict that, Guzynski said.

But "victims in this county deserve their measure of punishment."

They were women who lived "moment to moment, meal to meal, fix to fix," and Dasen exploited that, he said.

"These people had no hope, they lived in desperation. Mr. Dasen had all the hope in the world."

Dasen's attorney, George Best, said Dasen has nothing now.

He gave up his position in the community and is now destitute, Best said.

To say that Dasen is responsible for drug trafficking in the valley "is as ludicrous as anything could be," he said.

Dasen helped the women better their lives, even paying for drug treatment for them and their boyfriends at times, Best said.

"The man has been a cherished, charitable member of our community" who suffered from "felony bad judgment," he said.

Best recommended out-patient sex-offender treatment, saying Dasen is not dangerous.

In the end, Stadler disagreed.

He said Dasen's actions turned women into prostitutes who were forced to endure public shame for what they did. He fueled the methamphetamine community in some circles for years, spending millions of dollars. And even after one girl he was involved with died in a car accident and another was revealed to be underage, Dasen continued sexual relationships with other underage girls, Stadler said.

"You didn't care if they were 18. You didn't care if they were 14," Stadler said. One "looked like about a third-grader with braces."

During his trial, Dasen testified that the money he gave the women and the sex they gave him were unrelated. He said he led himself to believe that young women found him attractive and a legendary lover.

Stadler called it "so silly, thinking 18- and 19-year-old girls couldn't wait to get to a motel at 8:30 in the morning for anything other than money."

Stadler said he doesn't believe Dasen is as financially broken as wants the court to believe. But the judge does sympathize with Dasen's family, saying "my heart breaks" to hear them testify.

He wished Dasen good luck after imposing sentence.