Deferred sentence for third bad check case

A 55-year-old Columbia Falls man who’s been charged several times with writing bad checks, once with trafficking in eagle or hawk parts, and once with bailjumping was given a five-year deferred sentence for writing bad checks on April 30.

Flathead County District Court Judge David Ortley also ordered Jeffrey Bronson to pay $2,637 in restitution.

According to court records, Bronson wrote 18 bad checks in January and February 2014, mostly to bars and casinos. A probation officer reported that Bronson violated his release conditions by going into Scotty’s Bar in Kalispell several times in April 2014, where he allegedly frightened younger women at the bar.

Ortley ordered Bronson to be committed to the Department of Public Health and Human Services in June 2014. Three months later, Ortley ordered Bronson be committed for an additional 90 days because he wasn’t complying with his treatment plan.

In a January 29 plea agreement, the state and defense agreed to recommend a two-year deferred sentence. Ortley, however, chose to go for five years deferred.

Bronson was charged with writing bad checks in 2010, but the case was dismissed with prejudice by Judge Ted Lympus.

In a second case in 2011, Bronson was charged with writing bad checks worth $1,425. When he failed to make several court appearances, he was charged with bailjumping.

In July 2012, Bronson’s public defender asked that he be committed to the state mental health hospital if recommended by a mental evaluation. A mental health professional subsequently found Bronson “unfit to proceed in facing his legal situation,” and Judge Lympus ordered him committed.

Bronson’s criminal cases were dismissed by Judge Stewart Stadler in November 2012, but one month later Bronson was arraigned in U.S. District Court in Missoula on charges of trafficking in eagle or hawk parts.

Bronson’s legal problems were cited in a April 29 letter to Ortley from a couple who had moved to Kalispell in 2004 and hired Bronson to help them build a home using high-tech “structural insulated panels.”

The couple reported that Bronson misused construction funds and never completed the job, forcing them to hire another contractor. The couple wanted to know if Bronson had ever paid restitution for his past bad check cases.