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Polson Man Gets 50 Years for Rape

Dennis Hobbs also accused of hiring someone to kill woman so she couldn't testify about rape

By Molly Priddy

POLSON — A Polson man who was charged with trying to hire someone to kill his former girlfriend so she couldn’t testify against him in a rape trial has been sentenced to 50 years in prison without the possibility of parole for two counts of sexual intercourse without consent.

District Judge James Manley also sentenced Dennis Hobbs, 57, on Wednesday to five years for stalking and 10 years for witness tampering. Under the plea agreement, Lake County prosecutors agreed to dismiss a charge of solicitation of deliberate homicide.

The agreement also called for Hobbs’ 50-year Montana sentence to run consecutively with the remainder of his 15-year sentence in Idaho for a 2005 conviction for false imprisonment and battery.

Idaho Pardons and Parole records indicate Hobbs served about five years before being paroled to Montana. Idaho parole officials say a determination on whether Hobbs will be returned to Idaho won’t begin until after they receive the sentencing documents from Lake County.

Hobbs was charged with murder for hire and stalking in May.

Prosecutors alleged that after Hobbs’ father posted his $100,000 bond in the August 2013 rape case, Hobbs drove by his ex-girlfriend’s residence and her place of work, sent her flowers, made hang-up phone calls and several times asked the nephew of the then-Ronan police chief if he could find someone to kill her.