Kalispell man sentenced in intimidation case
A 65-year-old man’s continued refusal to register as a sex offender — maintaining his innocence — in addition to threating to go a killing spree to gain the public’s attention on the county’s criminal justice system has landed him 40 years in prison.
Dale Michael Hanson of Kalispell will serve the 40-year sentence for felony intimidation concurrently with a 30-year sentence for felony failure to register as a sex offender with a parole restriction of 30 years. He was sentenced by Judge Heidi Ulbricht in Flathead District Court on Wednesday, Aug. 9. Hanson was also designated as a persistent felony offender.
Hanson was previously convicted by a jury’s guilty verdict after a three-day trial.
Hanson has 60 days from Aug. 9 to apply to the Sentence Review Division of the Montana Supreme Court to review his sentence. He was advised that if he does apply for a review his sentence may be modified or remain unchanged.
In 2016, Hanson was charged with felony intimidation following an arrest for failure to register as a sex offender in 2009. Hanson reportedly did not register as a sex offender since being released from prison in 2005 after serving 20 years for felony sexual assault and deviant sexual contact when a jury found him guilty of assaulting a young boy in 1995. Hanson is designated as a Tier 1 sex offender, meaning the risk of a repeat sexual offense is low.
The intimidation charges were brought after Hanson sent a letter to the U.S. Marshal’s Service in Missoula between Aug. 1 and Aug. 3, 2016 to “inform — forewarn you that there are going to be a bunch of dead people if your agency does not intervene on my behalf!!” According to court records, Hanson wrote that for 22 years he had supposedly been fighting the “Nazi bastards of Flathead County Montana,” for crimes he claimed he did not commit and would “start killing people to get public attention.”
He reportedly wrote about various alleged injustices related to his conviction and denials of appeals for post-conviction relief and outlined actions that should have been taken to clear his name.
Hanson supposedly gave the federal agency a few weeks to see justice done or he would exact justice and revenge “vigilante style.”
In the letter, Hanson referred to Flathead County justice system employees as “thugs and thieves,” proceeding to name 18 individuals including two judges, a judge’s legal aide, the aide’s spouse, attorneys, a counselor, the sexual assault victim, the victim’s parent and numerous former and current county employees.
Letters written to Flathead County Sheriff’s Office were also noted in court documents for bonding purposes at the time. In the letters, Hanson reiterated supposed injustices and reportedly wrote that he would not set foot in “their kangaroo courtrooms ever again,” that “When they send 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.”
During Hanson’s trial, defense attorney Sean Hinchey said Hanson never intended to follow through with the threats, but rather acted out of frustration.
Before Hanson had been represented by Hinchey, he was a client of the Montana Innocence Project, but was dropped according to a September 2016 Daily Inter Lake article. The nonprofit group, which is affiliated with the University of Montana School of Law, has a mission to exonerate people who are wrongfully convicted.
In 2015, the nonprofit 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.
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 allegedly criticized Hanson for being involved with other women and vowed to get back at him, according to the 2016 Daily Inter Lake article.
“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.
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 Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.