Area Briefs

Judge: Write ‘boys

do not hit girls’

BILLINGS — The Montana judge who said a teen rape victim appeared “older than her chronological age” has sentenced a man convicted of punching his girlfriend to write “Boys do not hit girls” 5,000 times.

District Judge G. Todd Baugh also sentenced Pacer Anthony Ferguson, 27, to six months in jail and to pay $3,800 in restitution for fracturing the woman’s face in three places during an August 2012 argument.

The judge ordered Ferguson on Monday to number the list, sign it and mail it to him by May 23, The Billings Gazette reported.

Missoula couple

arrested for thefts

MISSOULA — A married couple who police say broke into several storage units have been charged with felony theft.

The Missoulian reports that 30-year-old Stephen Michael-Allen Hurd was charged Tuesday in Justice Court with felony burglary, two counts of felony theft and one misdemeanor possession of burglary tools.

Twenty-five-year-old Sheena Ann Flankey has been charged with one count of felony theft.

Police say Hurd stole a 1993 Mercury Cougar and then replaced it with a 1999 Mercury Sable he found while burglarizing an auto body shop.

Police say Hurd was identified because he used his own passcode to enter one of the storage unit facilities.

Arrested fugitive

returned for court

HELENA — An ex-Montana Army National Guard soldier accused of fleeing the country to avoid felony sex crime charges appeared in Lewis and Clark District Court.

Jeffrey Lane Wenzel was ordered held on $1 million bond Tuesday.

Wenzel was a sergeant stationed in Butte. He was charged in June 2012 with a felony sex crime against a minor and two counts of sexual abuse of a child.

The Independent Record reports he now faces a charge of bail-jumping, too.

Wenzel didn’t show up for his Jan. 22 trial. An affidavit filed by Assistant Attorney General Mary Cochenour says Wenzel wrote his wife a letter saying he didn’t believe he would get a fair trial.