Man sentenced for road-rage incident
Flathead District Court Judge Heidi Ulbricht followed the sentencing recommendation on Thursday of a prosecutor in sentencing a Eureka man who was convicted in a case of alleged road rage that took place on Memorial Day in Kalispell.
Kristopher Stacy, 30, will serve eight years with the Montana Department of Corrections, with four years suspended after he entered an Alford plea to an amended charge of felony criminal endangerment as part of a plea agreement. The agreement dropped a felony assault with a weapon charge. An Alford plea convicts an individual of a crime, but allows the defendant to maintain his or her innocence. It acknowledges that an individual is likely to be found guilty at trial.
Stacy was accused of shooting at another vehicle in Kalispell over Memorial Day weekend.
According to court documents and dispatch call logs, Kalispell Police responded at 10:26 p.m. on May 29 to Cemetery Road and U.S. 93. Someone reported that a person in a vehicle had pulled out a shotgun and shot at their vehicle.
Stacy and a woman were located in the suspected vehicle. Stacy allegedly admitted that he got angry at another driver, but denied firing a shotgun at the driver.
The woman traveling with Stacy allegedly told investigators that Stacy had fired a round from the driver’s-side window to scare the other drivers.
The sentence will run consecutive to a sentence that was recently handed down in Lincoln County for Stacy’s fourth conviction for driving under the influence. In that case Stacy was ordered to go through a 13-month treatment program, followed by a four-year consecutive suspended sentence.
Stacy’s attorney Jessica Polan had asked that the criminal endangerment and felony DUI sentence run concurrently because both incidents “happened mostly due to Mr. Stacy’s drinking.”
However, prosecutor Stacy Boman wanted the sentences to run consecutively.
“He’s committed two separate felonies and he should receive two separate sentences for those,” Boman said.
Stacy’s criminal history includes multiple convictions for driving under the influence in Montana and North Dakota, driving with a suspended license, and breaking into the Whitefish Presbyterian Church.