Man denied request to reduce bail from $100,000
<p>Joseph Dee Walbridge</p>
A district judge on Monday denied a bail reduction request from a Libby man charged with having sex with a minor without consent.
District Judge James Wheelis denied the request to reduce the $100,000 bail set for 20-year-old Joseph D. Walbridge by Justice of the Peace Jay Sheffield. Walbridge is charged with two felony counts of sexual intercourse without consent. If convicted, Walbridge faces a maximum 200 years in state prison and a maximum fine of $100,000.
According to court documents, Walbridge was arrested after a 15-year-old girl that had been missing for several weeks was located and told law enforcement that she had hitchhiked to Washington with Walbridge. Libby police began looking for the girl in late January of 2015, according to court documents, and police from Spokane Valley on Feb. 15 found her near Spokane.
The girl told police that she had left the area with Walbridge, had sex, hitchhiked into northern Idaho and into eastern Washington before meeting a man and staying with him for several days near Spokane. The girl told police that while with the man at his home, she and Walbridge took several drugs including oxycontin, methamphetamine and marijuana.
The man later discovered they were runaways and urged the girl to turn herself in, she told police, before severely beating Walbridge. The Idaho man dropped Walbridge off about a mile from the house and the girl had not seen him since. The girl left the house and turned herself into the Spokane Valley Police Department where her mother picked her up that day. The girl gave Libby police a full recollection of the events in an interview back in Troy, according to court documents.
Walbridge was booked into Lincoln County jail on June 17, 2016, more than a year after the girl was found and interviewed by police.
At Monday’s hearing, Walbridge’s attorney Charles Sprinkle asked that his bail be reduced so he could go home with his mother in Billings, although she told Wheelis that her landlord did not approve of Walbridge staying at the apartment. She said she was waiting for a new residence to open up so Walbridge could join her in Billings.
Judge Wheelis denied the request and set Walbridge’s next hearing for Aug. 1.
Reporter Seaborn Larson may be reached at 293-4124 or by email at slarson@dailyinterlake.com.