10 times later on, a unique female walked into a law enforcement station in Butte to report that Nygaard experienced sexually assaulted her the month right before, just after she spurned his “unprovoked sexual advances,” Cox wrote.
On Thursday, a Montana state choose explained he was providing Nygaard “an remarkable chance” by not sending him to jail, even although he found him guilty of sexual intercourse with out consent, a felony that carries the chance of a 20-calendar year prison sentence.
As a substitute, Choose Kurt Krueger sentenced the 20-yr-aged to probation, purchased him to counseling and needed that he register as a sexual intercourse offender for 6 years. If Nygaard obeys the judge’s orders for that interval, he can ask the courtroom to permit him withdraw his guilty plea and wipe the case from his legal document.
The choose mentioned the rarity of acquiring a deferred sentence for rape.
Cox mentioned one of the major factors it did come about was that Nygaard’s two victims supported the no-jail plea cut price — Nygaard would plead guilty to 1 of the two sexual assault felonies he was billed with in trade, Cox agreed to drop the second a person and sign off on a deferred sentence.
Neither Cox nor Nygaard’s lawyer, David Maldonado, responded to a request for comment from The Washington Article.
At the sentencing, Nygaard explained to the choose he was “incredibly dissatisfied in my actions by acting disrespectfully.” But, Nygaard added, he had bettered himself because the rape and would hold undertaking so.
“I have started the extensive procedure of maturing and having on the duty of becoming a man my family members and I can be happy of,” Nygaard said. “This perform has just begun, and I sincerely regret obtaining to stand right before you these days. Even so, it will be the previous I will ever come across myself here.”
Both of those victims, accompanied by relatives customers, attended Nygaard’s sentencing hearing, the Montana Typical documented. The women of all ages, who are friends, empathized with Nygaard as young persons who understood that “the ramifications from this are for the entirety of this person’s everyday living,” Cox stated. “So they imagined, putting by themselves in any individual else’s sneakers, that an chance was warranted.”
“They hope he can choose the needed steps, with counseling, with all the circumstances of supervision, and develop into a successful member of the neighborhood,” Cox said at the listening to. The two also have the sincere hope “that nobody else has to go by the situation they ended up in.”
Nygaard was attending and playing football for Montana Tech when the woman went into the Butte law enforcement station in Oct 2020. She described to law enforcement that Nygaard experienced strike on her three times in a five-working day span the prior thirty day period. On the 3rd, he blocked her from leaving his spot and sexually assaulted her, in accordance to an account by Cox in courtroom data.
The girl informed police she felt ashamed and documented what happened following exploring Nygaard might have attacked a person else, courtroom documents point out.
“She then felt compelled to go to the law enforcement,” Cox wrote.
Throughout the ensuing investigation, police contacted a different lady who reported she and Nygaard had dated briefly in August 2020, according to court docket paperwork. They mostly stopped speaking after the breakup until eventually Nygaard contacted her in late September of that year and produced “unusual comments about self hurt,” Cox wrote.
On Oct. 3, he sent her a information on social media asking her to let him into her property, right after which he raped her, courtroom paperwork point out. At just one position, she attempted calling for assistance, but Nygaard took her cell phone.
She “asked him to quit numerous occasions,” Cox wrote.
By the time Nygaard was charged in March 2021, he was no for a longer time a college student or football participant at Montana Tech, in accordance to the Montana Standard.
Cox named the deferred sentence a “double-edge sword” immediately after Thursday’s hearing when he spoke to the newspaper.
“He either avails of it and reveals that it was a oversight of maturity — a error that is not dependable with getting a sexual predator — or if he does exhibit any other indicators that he is a predator of any mother nature, we have an possibility to go for a complete sentence,” the prosecutor reported.
Krueger claimed the victims’ acceptance was essential in his conclusion to acknowledge the plea settlement.
“What influences the court docket the most … is that the victims have indicated that they feel that you must be provided a probability,” Krueger informed him, “and this prospect you are finding is an amazing possibility.”