Hungry Horse man sentenced for knife incident

A 22-year-old Hungry Horse man was sentenced to 10 years with the Montana Department of Corrections with five suspended after he pleaded guilty Dec. 6, 2012, to felony assault with a weapon.

Flathead County District Court Judge Ted Lympus sentenced Justin Walker on Feb. 14 with a recommendation for placement with the Treasure State Correctional Training Center boot camp with anger management treatment. Walker’s guilty plea followed a plea agreement with the county attorney’s office.

Walker has faced three felony charges over the past four years. He was charged with felony criminal mischief and misdemeanor unlawful use of a vehicle after he hot wired and stole a Bobcat in July 2009.

Walker was also charged in 2009 with using counterfeit $10 bills at the Huckleberry Patch restaurant in Hungry Horse. His felony forgery charge was later amended to a misdemeanor, and that case was combined with the stolen Bobcat case.

Two months after he was given a three-year deferred sentence for those cases, Walker’s probation officer recommended the sentence be revoked. Walker was charged with moving without permission, operating a marijuana grow, blowing a 0.181 and a 0.242 blood alcohol content on separate occasions, threatening a sheriff’s deputy, smoking marijuana, obstructing an officer and making no payments on his restitution or fine.

Lympus revoked Walker’s sentence in April 2011 and gave him a seven-year sentence under the Department of Corrections with five suspended and recommended him for boot camp.

The most recent charges came following a Sept. 24 incident last year in which Walker allegedly threatened a Martin City man with a knife. The man wanted to tell Walker to slow down when driving through Martin City.

Shortly after the knife incident, the man came across the same vehicle upside down on South Fork Drive. When sheriff’s deputies arrived at Walker’s house following the accident, Walker allegedly emerged holding a knife and was arrested.

Walker was allegedly uncooperative while being transported to the county jail. He blew a 0.199 blood-alcohol content and was charged with DUI in addition to one felony count of assault with a weapon and one felony count of assaulting a peace officer.

Walker’s suspended sentence for the 2009 stolen Bobcat and counterfeiting cases was revoked again because of the nature of the 2012 charges. On Feb. 14, Lympus gave Walker a five-year suspended sentence for that case concurrent with the sentence for the assault with a weapon charge.