A Flathead County man convicted of sexually assaulting a young boy in the 1990s was found guilty Thursday of felony intimidation and failure to register as a sex offender.
The verdict closed out a three-day trial for Dale Michael Hanson who wrote a letter to the U.S. Marshals Service in 2016 promising to enact “revenge” on the people who put him behind bars if the agency did not investigate his conviction. Hanson has maintained his innocence for more than two decades.
On Thursday, the 12-person jury heard testimony from three character witnesses before prosecutors Travis Ahner and Andrew Clegg and defense attorney Sean Hinchey made their closing arguments. The case was given to the jury shortly before 3 p.m. and they deliberated for just over an hour before finding Hanson guilty on both counts.
As the court clerk read the verdict, Hanson, dressed in a denim blue shirt and jeans, silently looked down at the table in front of him. Flathead County District Court Judge Heidi Ulbricht set sentencing for June 28.
Hanson was convicted in 1995 of sexual assault and deviant sexual conduct. According to court documents and testimony at that original trial, Hanson forced his girlfriend’s young son to touch his penis and perform oral sex on him in 1991 and 1992. A jury found Hanson guilty in March 1995 and four months later he was sentenced to 20 years in the Montana State Prison with 10 years suspended. In the years since the conviction, Hanson has appealed his case on multiple occasions, arguing that evidence was suppressed and prosecutors interfered with witnesses during his original trial. Despite having the help of the Montana Innocence Project, multiple courts have maintained that Hanson is guilty.
Four years after his release in 2005, local law enforcement discovered that Hanson, who had moved back to Flathead County, had never registered as a sexual offender. In September 2009, Deputy Flathead County Attorney Lori Adams filed felony charges of failure to register as a sexual offender against Hanson.
In August 2016, Hanson sent a letter and a package of materials to the U.S. Marshals Service asking that they investigate his conviction. The letter included multiple threats to judges, attorneys and lawmen in Flathead County.
Over the course of the three-day trial that began on April 24, prosecutors painted a picture of a man intent on getting revenge on the people who put him behind bars. In the letter to federal agents, Hanson opened by writing “there are going to be a bunch of dead bodies if you do not intervene on my behalf.” He then listed the names of 18 judges, attorneys, and law enforcement officers involved in his 1995 trial.
“When they send their Nazi bootjack death squad after me, it will be to execute me,” Hanson wrote. “All I need is to see them and I’ll be pumping as much lead at them as I can before they kill me, and I will make them kill me! I’ll take as many of them with me as I can. They may take my life, but they’ll never take my freedom again!”
U.S. Marshal Chris Strommen testified that when he received the letter from Hanson he considered it to be a real and legitimate threat and quickly contacted law enforcement in Flathead County. Federal marshals and Flathead County Sheriff’s deputies tracked Hanson down in Whitefish on Aug. 24. When they did, Hanson introduced himself as “Dan,” an alias he had used for a number of years after leaving prison.
Eventually, the officers determined that he was indeed Hanson and placed him under arrest. Detective Josh Buls testified that as they placed Hanson under arrest, he told officers that, “I should have gotten my gun and killed them all.”
Hanson’s friends testified that they had never seen his darker side and that they were surprised by what he had written federal officers. Each of them said that Hanson was frustrated because he still maintained his innocence and felt that no one would help him clear his name.
“He was looking for someone to help him,” said Richard Maxson, who knew Hanson for 45 years and testified during the third day of the trial. “He didn’t want to hurt anyone. He just wanted help.”
“It was a desperate cry for help,” said another longtime friend, Nancy Izett. “What would you do if you were at your wits end, when all you want is someone to just stop and listen to you?”
During his closing arguments, Hinchey called his client’s letter “tough talk” but said Hanson never intended to act on it.
“Dale is so convinced that he was wrongfully convicted that he has spent the last 23 years trying to get it overturned,” Hinchey said. “He wrote this letter out of frustration … We all say things that we don’t mean in haste and anger, things we may regret, but that doesn’t make it criminal.”
Prosecutors countered that there was no way to know if Hanson’s words were “tough talk” and that there is no denying he failed to register as a sex offender.
“These words have consequences,” Ahner said.