Man accused of defacing Lakeside church with pentagram
Orion Jacob Glace. (Photo courtesy the Flathead County Sheriff's Office)
A 25-year-old accused of defacing a Lakeside church in September with symbols linked to Satanism and a slogan connected to a mass shooting in Minnesota is facing felony charges in Flathead County District Court.
Orion Jacob Glace of Lakeside is expected to be arraigned on two counts of felony malicious intimidation or harassment of civil or human rights before Judge Danni Coffman on Jan. 8. He remains held in the county jail with bail set at $500,000.
A member of the church reported the vandalism Sept. 2, telling Flathead County Sheriff's Office deputies that someone had painted a pentagram near the front door of the church and stolen the church flag, replacing it with a banner also bearing the pentagram. The church's surveillance system captured an individual on a skateboard and carrying a backpack on the premises at 1:09 a.m., according to court documents.
The individual was described as wearing a hooded sweatshirt and white sneakers, court documents said.
Examining the pentagram-emblazoned flag on Sept. 5, deputies noticed several phrases written on it with paint. One of them contained a slogan used by the 22-year-old shooter in the deadly attack on children attending a Catholic Mass in Minnesota in August, court documents alleged.
Church members contacted the Sheriff's Office again on Sept. 6 after the surveillance system caught the suspected vandal returning the stolen flag to the house of worship about 3:30 a.m., court documents said. The flag was now scrawled with the same phrase linked to the Minnesota shooting, according to court documents.
Investigators homed in on Glace after a storeowner's daughter identified him as the person in the surveillance footage, court documents alleged. The storeowner told deputies that he had also seen Glace in his shop wearing the same clothes as the person on the recording.
Another person also came forward to the authorities and reported seeing Glace at a store in Lakeside about 5:30 p.m., Sept. 6. That person remembered Glace had with him a skateboard decorated with a pentagram, court documents said.
Malicious intimidation or harassment of civil or human rights is punishable by up to five years in Montana State Prison and a $5,000 fine.
News Editor Derrick Perkins can be reached at 758-4430 or dperkins@dailyinterlake.com.