Bail set at $500,000 for killing-spree threats

A Kalispell sex offender is being held on $500,000 bail after allegedly threatening to go on a killing spree to bring attention to the Flathead County criminal justice system.

Dale Michael Hanson, 65, is accused of issuing threats to more than a dozen officials including judges, court staffers and Flathead County Sheriff’s deputies.

Hanson was charged Aug. 25 with felony intimidation.

He was arrested earlier in the month for failure to register as a sex offender. Those charges were filed in 2009 because Hanson allegedly did not register as a sexual offender after was released from prison in 2005. He had served 20 years for felony sexual assault and deviant sexual contact. A jury found that he assaulted a young boy.

Hanson sent the U.S. Marshal’s Service in Missoula a letter on Aug. 3 “to inform- forwarn you that there are going to be a bunch of dead people if your agency does not intervene on my behalf!!”

Hanson wrote that he has been fighting the “Nazi bastards of Flathead County, Montana” for 22 years for crimes he claims he did not commit.

He allegedly threatened to “start killing people to get public attention.”

Hanson then listed numerous injustices supposedly dealt to him in denials of appeals for post-conviction relief and suggested that the marshals contact the victim’s family so that “you will get to the truth and prevent the blood shed.”

Hanson allegedly went on to say that he would wait a few more weeks to see justice done or he would “start the chaos and mayhem to see justice done myself vigilante style.”

In the letter, Hanson allegedly referred to those working in the Flathead County Justice system as “thugs and thieves.” He allegedly wrote “I will have my revenge!” at one point and listed “the thugs responsible” as 18 people, naming judges, a judge’s legal aide and the aide’s spouse, several attorneys, a counselor, the victim of the sexual assault, and numerous other Flathead County employees.

In addition to the letter send to federal authorities, a note in Hanson’s court file claims that the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office received multiple letters in which he allegedly wrote: “I will never set foot in their kangaroo court rooms ever again.”

He also allegedly wrote:

“When they sent their Nazi bootjack death squad after me, it will be to execute me. All I need is to see them and I’ll be pumping as much lead at them as I can before they kill me, and I will make them kill me! I’ll take as many of them with me as I can. They may take my life, but they’ll never take my freedom again!”

Hanson is set to be arraigned Sept. 22.

Hanson’s public defender Sean Hinchey said Wednesday that he had met with Hanson to review the charges, but he was not sure what his client’s approach to the charges will be. He did note that the bail was exceptionally high.

A representative with the Montana Innocence Project said Wednesday that Hinchey is now Hanson’s legal representative after the project dropped him as a client earlier this year. The Montana Innocence Project is a nonprofit group affiliated with the University of Montana School of Law that uses DNA evidence to exonerate those who were wrongly convicted.

Last year, the group represented Hanson in an appeal to the Montana Supreme Court, in which he claimed that Flathead District Court had abused its discretion in handling a petition for Hanson be pardoned. In 2011, the law school interviewed more than 20 people who supported Hanson’s release.

Hanson’s legal representatives also claimed that the victim of the crime could have been coached by his mother and raised concerns that voicemails left by the child’s mother on Hanson’s answering machine were not admitted as evidence. In the voicemails, the mother criticized Hanson for allegedly being involved with other women and vowed to get back at him.

“Oh man I hate you,” the woman allegedly said in the messages. “You will not believe how bad I hate you. If I could die right now just to show how much I hate you I would do it. I hate you so bad.”

Hanson’s legal team also claimed that a now deceased sheriff’s deputy who investigated the case advised some people who might have testified on Hanson’s behalf to stay away until the sex-assault case was done.

A district judge allowed the pardon-request case to proceed, but when Hanson was ordered to show up at a disposition hearing in 2013, he refused. Prosecutors had issued a warrant on the 2009 failure-to-register case. Hanson has refused to register or has registered “under protest” at times because he asserts his innocence, his legal team explained.

Flathead District Judge Robert Allison found that the outstanding warrant was no excuse not to show up in court.

Allison wrote that “by engaging the matter and entering into the sometimes shark-infested waters of the litigation process, [Hanson] positioned himself in a manner making him subject to certain appearance requirements, including but not limited to personal attendance at a scheduled deposition.”

Hanson did not show up after two additional orders to appear and Allison denied his appeal and closed the case.

Despite the Montana Innocence Project’s assertions that the court could have tailored an order to allow Hanson to avoid arrest, the Montana Supreme Court sided with Allison in a June ruling.

“Allowing a litigant to ignore a court order to appear for a deposition because of an outstanding warrant cannot be tolerated,” Montana Supreme Court Justice Laurie McKinnon wrote in a unanimous opinion.

Reporter Megan Strickland can be reached at 758-4459 or mstrickland@dailyinterlake.com.