Libby man receives suspended sentence for simple assault

Brandon Huffman was sentenced to two consecutive six month sentences in Montana’s 19th Judicial District Court Monday morning, after entering guilty pleas to one misdemeanor charge of tampering with a communications device and one misdemeanor simple assault charge. He was given credit for time served after his arrest, with the remaining time of the sentences suspended. He was also fined $250 for each of the misdemeanor convictions, with payment due no later than Sept. 15, 2016.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, the felony count of assault on a minor was dropped and the partner family member assault charge was amended to a misdemeanor simple assault. Huffman pleaded guilty to the simple assault and the outstanding charge of tampering with a communications device.

Huffman was arrested in January 2016 and charged with one felony count of assault on a minor and misdemeanor tampering with a communications device and partner family member assault. 

According to the affidavit of probable cause, Lincoln County Sheriff’s Deputy Boyd White was dispatched to a residence on Farm to Market Road, at which Huffman lives with his partner, in response to a report of a domestic disturbance. The woman reported Huffman, who had been drinking, threatened to hit her four-year-old son and called him an obscene name.

The woman said she attempted to call law enforcement to have Huffman removed from the residence, but Huffman took her phone and threw it, causing it to break apart.

White then interviewed the woman’s seven-year-old daughter, who was also present at the time of the incident. The daughter said Huffman kicked the four-year-old victim.

“She told me that Brandon [Huffman] threatened to punch [child victim] and then kicked him when [adult female victim] was not looking,” White wrote in the report. “The kick caused [child victim] to fall backward, the distance she described was about five feet from where [child victim] was kicked to where he landed.”