Jury finds Kolb guilty

A Flathead County jury Wednesday found Kyle Kolb guilty of robbing two Missoula men in Whitefish in January.

Kolb, 20, buried his face in his hands when the jury's verdict was announced. He could be sentenced to as long as 40 years in prison.

Jurors were presented two theories about what happened in a Motel 6 room where the Missoula men were guests during a ski trip.

Lori Adams and Dan Guzynski, deputy county attorneys, held that Kolb and two friends set up the Missoula men, Brian Hughes and Matt Madsen, for the robbery. They had all met at a downtown bar before they left together. Kolb drove to an automated teller machine at a bank before all the men went to the motel in what they later admitted was an aborted drug deal. Hughes withdrew $200.

Kolb and his friends used "the ruse of marijuana" they would supposedly sell, according to a closing statement by Guzynski. Kolb and his friends actually had no marijuana to sell.

Instead, when they entered the room, they ambushed Hughes and Madsen, beating them and threatening them with a gun, Guzynski said. They took $200 from Hughes and fled.

Kolb's attorney, Scott Hilderman, presented a different story. He said a fistfight broke out in the motel room. Kolb and his friends may have committed a theft in taking Hughes' money, but there was no robbery, Hilderman said.

Hilderman was up against a statement Kolb gave to Whitefish police. In it, detective Sgt. Dan Frank asked Kolb, "So, on the way over, you were discussing it with Brett [Johnson] and Jake [Hogsett], that you were gonna sell drugs to these guys that you knew you didn't have. So you decided to rob them?"

Kolb replied, "Yeah, we decided, ya know …"

Hilderman stressed that Hughes and Madsen lied about drugs being involved in the hastily arranged meeting among the men. Later, they admitted they had lied.

Madsen apologized for the lies, saying he knew it made the jury's job more difficult.

Indeed, some jurors appeared troubled by the verdict. They had sent a note to District Judge Kitty Curtis, asking to write a comment on the jury form that would seem to mitigate Kolb's involvement in the robbery, but still convict him of the crime.

Hilderman said he plans to appeal Kolb's conviction.

"We are disappointed in the verdict," he said.

Adams said she is pleased that "the jury came to the right verdict."

Still to be prosecuted in the case are Kolb's friends, Johnson and Hogsett.

Curtis will sentence Kolb on August 24.