Freund pleads guilty after car chase, death threats
Jeffrey Neil Freund entered a guilty plea Monday morning to felony criminal endangerment and misdemeanor driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs three months after he was arrested on April 6.
Lincoln County Deputy County Attorney Joe Cik said Freund is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 5.
Freund, who is being held on $255,000 bond after his April 6 arrest, was previously charged with seven charges and was set to have a pre-trial in July and a jury trial in September.
The original charges were criminal endangerment, kidnapping, obstructing a peace officer, driving with a suspended or revoked license, partner or family member assault, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs and fleeing from or eluding a peace officer.
According to the first report of the April 6 case, an anonymous person called Lincoln County Dispatch about a drunk driver coming from Kalispell to Libby. Dispatch advised that the driver could be Jeffrey Freund, who had been arrested previously, because he was driving a similar car he’d driven in previous encounters with authorities.
After fleeing the scene by car and then by foot, Freund was handcuffed on Bache Road after damaging the car while trying to escape the police.
Police had identified a passenger in Freund’s vehicle as Ashley Siefke, who tried to flee the scene early in the chase. She was located after Freund was handcuffed at the Bache Road location that Freund identified as Siefke’s father’s house.
According to the initial report, Siefke described that before the car chase and arrest, Freund entered Siefke’s room at her father’s house, coerced her out of bed and into his car where he continued to threaten to kill her and her family and also threatened to violate her. Siefke and Freund were later stopped by Lincoln County deputies.
The plea agreement includes an agreed suggestion between the prosecution and defense to sentence Freund for three years for criminal endangerment and six months for the DUI charge. Also, the prosecution dismissed three charges: obstructing a peace officer, driving with a suspended or revoked license, and fleeing from or eluding a peace officer.
In addition, the plea agreement requires Freund to pay a $500 fine and $130 in court surcharges. According to the agreement, a public defender reimbursement fee was waived due to the defendant’s limited financial resources.
Freund is being held at the Lincoln County Detention Center on $250,000 bond.
Cik said the next step for the case is for the Montana Department of Corrections to conduct a pre-sentence investigation to interview Freund about his criminal history to come up with its own recommendation for his sentence. The next hearing for Freund will be at 9:30 a.m. on Sept. 4 at District Court in Libby.