Two of former Jefferson County sheriff's felony convictions vacated by Idaho Supreme Court
Under direction from the Idaho Supreme Court, District Judge Dane Watkins Jr. on Monday vacated two counts of former Jefferson County Sheriff Blair Olsen’s conviction for misuse of public funds.
A Twin Falls jury convicted Olsen in May 2015 on three felony counts of misuse of public funds for allowing his wife to use a county-paid cellphone mainly for personal use.
Olsen was sentenced to serve 15 days in jail and three years of supervised probation.
Watkins also on Monday placed Olsen on informal probation to conclude July 10. Olsen no longer has to report to a probation officer or pay monthly service fees for probation. Watkins said if Olsen does not violate his probation before July, he will grant a withheld judgment. If Olsen successfully completes informal probation, the charges will be dismissed from his record.
The Supreme Court in December found that the prosecution had erred in aggregating the time the cellphone was used, between 2010 and 2012, into three counts for each year the county paid for the cellphone. The Supreme Court wrote that the statute Olsen was convicted under requires that the counts can only be aggregated if the amount taken exceeds $300. Since some of the years did not meet the $300 threshold, the Supreme Court ordered that two of the counts should be vacated.
Read more: http://www.postregister.com/articles/news-todays-headlines/2017/03/13/two-olsen%E2%80%99s-felony-convictions-vacated
