Beginning stages of plea agreement outlined
A Mountain Lake man, 25-year-old Rufino John Felix Jr., appeared before Judge Christina Wietzema in Cottonwood County District Court on Friday afternoon, October 9, for a contested omnibus hearing.
As reported online on Worthington’s Daily Globe website, Felix is charged with attempted second-degree murder, kidnapping, terroristic threats, domestic assault by strangulation and impeding an emergency telephone call following an alleged attack on his wife in late July.
Instead of a hearing, however, Patrick Casey, attorney for defendant Felix, outlined the beginning stages of a plea agreement, presenting to the court that the defense and prosecution had been working to come to a resolution in the case.
In the agreement, the state would be willing to amend the current charges in the complaint to first-degree assault and false imprisonment in the first degree. Felix is willing to plead guilty to both charges, as well as enter a guilty plea to violating a restraining order, in exchange for the dismissal of the other charges against him.
This plea deal would send Felix to prison for 110 months on the assault and false imprisonment charges, with the sentences on the two crimes running consecutively. The additional violation charge would have a sentence concurrent with the other two.
Casey requested a date for a plea hearing and sentencing be placed on the court calendar.
Judge Wietzema said the complaint would first need to be amended to the first-degree assault charge before a pre-sentencing investigation could be ordered in the case. Following the petition for a plea and the amended complaint, it would probably be scheduled six-to-eight weeks out to allow time for an investigation.
Casey was not certain if Felix would enter an Alford plea in the matter, or a fact-based plea. He did not waive Felix’s right to bring up omnibus issues at a later date, in the event the plea were not finalized or accepted. Pending the plea, Felix was not arraigned on the charges on Friday.
He is being held in the Cottonwood County Jail on a $200,000 bond with conditions and a $500,000 bond without conditions.
