Detective’s harassment trial starts Monday
A suspended Spokane police detective who allegedly threatened to burn down his estranged wife’s Colbert house with her inside it faces trial starting Monday on a felony harassment charge.
The Class C felony is punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Court records show that Jay P. Mehring’s defense attorney has subpoenaed nearly two dozen law enforcement officers for the trial, including Spokane Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick and Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich, whose office investigated Mehring’s conduct last year. The subpoenas were delivered April 23.
Lisa Ann Mehring, the detective’s ex-wife who reported Mehring’s conduct in the midst of their divorce proceedings, has also been subpoenaed by the state to testify in the trial.
A motion to dismiss the harassment charge will be argued Monday morning in the courtroom of Spokane County Superior Court Judge Michael Price.
Mehring, 40, has been on “unpaid layoff status” from the Spokane Police Department since his arrest last year and has been working odd jobs in the Spokane area, said his attorney, Chris Bugbee.
The state filed the harassment charge against Mehring on March 30, 2007, shortly after Lisa Ann Mehring sought a restraining order. Mehring had moved out of the couple’s home in November 2006 after filing for divorce, according to court records.
“Jay is making repeated death threats to me. He has told me that he will destroy me, burn down my home with me in it and otherwise completely ruin my life,” she said in her March 28, 2007, petition for a restraining order. Mehring made similar threats in front of his 10-year-old son and in the presence of other police officers, including Spokane police Sgt. Dave Overhoff, who reported the threats to the Police Department, according to a police affidavit.
The affidavit says Lisa Ann Mehring also contacted Sgt. Troy Teigen at the Police Department to report the threats, which she said stemmed from a March 19, 2007, meeting with their tax accountant.
“Substantial funds” of nearly $60,000 that had been in their joint Ameritrade and savings accounts had been drawn down to $46,000 without her knowledge. She asked that the remaining funds be frozen until the divorce was final, according to her restraining order petition.
“After that occurred, Jay went on a rage that has not ended,” Lisa Ann Mehring said in the court documents, adding she was especially frightened for their two young children.
Mehring swore at her in front of the children and other parents at his son’s wrestling match when she refused to sign a release of her interest in their Ameritrade account, she added.
After that confrontation, she called him a “Jackass” in a text message and he told her that he was going to “Burn down their house with her in it,” according to the March 30, 2007, affidavit supporting the harassment charge.
After Spokane police detectives determined it was likely a criminal case, officials turned the investigation over to the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office, which served Mehring with a restraining order on March 29 last year. A portion of the order forbidding Mehring to contact his wife was lifted two months later.
During the investigation, Mehring was removed from the Drug Enforcement Administration task force where he served as a detective, had his service weapon confiscated and was assigned a desk job. He had been an undercover drug detective in Spokane since 2003.
On March 30, the same day the affidavit was signed, Chief Kirkpatrick announced that Mehring had been arrested on charges of felony harassment and domestic violence and had been placed on unpaid layoff status.
Shortly after his arrest, Mehring posted $100,000 bond and was released.