Men in Marion fracas plead to reduced charges

Two Marion men charged in connection with what prosecutors originally believed was a racially motivated attack on migrant mushroom pickers have been sentenced to jail time served.

Edward Lee Hubbs, 27, and Karl Trent, 47, were convicted of misdemeanor disorderly conduct during separate hearings Thursday in Flathead County District Court.

Hubbs, who pleaded no contest, was ordered to serve a 10-day suspended jail term and Trent, who pleaded guilty, was ordered to serve a 30-day deferred sentence.

Both men had already served that time - Hubbs spent 45 days and Trent spent 55 days in the Flathead County Detention Center - following their arrests in the July fracas with a group of Laotian, Cambodian and Thai morel mushroom pickers at the Moose Crossing campground in Marion.

A third man implicated in the incident, 26-year-old Daniel James Devine, pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct - the same misdemeanor charge Hubbs and Trent faced - on Feb. 12. Devine also was sentenced to a suspended 10-day jail term.

Hubbs, Trent and Devine originally were charged with malicious intimidation or harassment relating to civil or human rights - a felony that comes with a five-year prison sentence- but were convicted of the substantially reduced charge of disorderly conduct.

"That's the lowest misdemeanor we have, if that gives you any indication of the strength of the state's case," said Hubbs' attorney, Lane K. Bennett.

Bennett has long said that race had nothing to do with the incident and that neither Hubbs nor his co-defendants initiated the altercation.

According to authorities, Trent, Hubbs and Devine were among about half a dozen men who pulled up to the mushroom pickers' campsite in two pickups and a car shortly after 10 p.m. on July 12.

Prosecutors initially alleged that during the ensuing disturbance beer bottles were thrown, shots were fired into the air, and racial slurs were uttered - an allegation the men denied.

According to investigators, the altercation at the campsite followed a confrontation between Hubbs and the group of mushroom pickers at the Bitterroot Quick Stop on U.S. 2 in Marion earlier that evening.

Bennett said the mushroom pickers jumped Hubbs as he left the store, possibly because they thought he had said something disrespectful when he asked if they were waiting in line. One of Hubbs' friends reportedly jumped in to help fend off the attack.

"It was unprovoked," Bennett said. "He thought everything was fine."

Bennett said Hubbs told him the mushroom pickers all had similar neck tattoos and wore sidearms. And during the fight outside the convenience store, one of the mushroom pickers fired a shot that whizzed past Hubbs' sister.

"It blew back her hair a bit, it was that close," said Bennett, who added that Hubbs unsuccessfully tried twice that night to find sheriff's deputies and lead them to the mushroom pickers who, in his mind, instigated the disturbance.

Flathead County Attorney Ed Corrigan said he reduced the charges facing Hubbs, Trent and Devine, in part, because the mushroom pickers aren't available as witnesses.

"The victims in this offense - to the extent that they were victims, and I'm less and less convinced that they are - are not available," Corrigan said. "We simply don't have enough evidence to go to trial."

Corrigan did acknowledge Hubbs, Trent and Devine consistently stated they did not start the altercation at the convenience store and were able to produce witnesses to that effect.

"If that is true, it's not a hate crime even if they were using inappropriate racial terms," Corrigan said. "And without the mushroom pickers here to rebut that, we don't have a case."

Reporter Nicholas Ledden can be reached at 758-4441 or by e-mail at nledden@dailyinterlake.com