Five years in prison for wife beater

A 43-year-old Columbia Falls man with a long violent history towards women was sentenced July 18 to eight years in prison with three years suspended.

Shane Stansberry was convicted by Alford plea for a 2012 felony charge of partner-family member assault, meaning he maintained his innocence but acknowledged sufficient evidence existed to convict him.

Since 1993, Stansberry has been charged with partner-family member assault five times — three as felonies and two as misdemeanors. One of the felony charges was reduced to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct. He was convicted on the other four charges. Drinking was a factor in the cases.

His first felony assault charge came in March 2007, when Stansberry and his girlfriend went out drinking and he reportedly got angry. She decided to leave and walk home but found him there waiting. He began to beat her but she escaped to her neighbors and called 911.

Before being transported to the hospital for medical treatment, she told officers Stansberry had gone into a “black rage” and that she was afraid for her two sons, 11 and 6 years old, who were in the residence with Stansberry along with some firearms. The SWAT team was called in, but Stansberry was gone by then.

Stansberry was charged with felony aggravated assault and felony partner-family member assault and faced up to 20 years and a $50,000 fine. Following a plea agreement, Flathead County District Court Judge Stewart Stadler gave Stansberry a five-year deferred sentence and a $1,000 net fine.

Stansberry was arrested in Whitefish in August 2009 after he was allegedly drinking and abusing the same girlfriend. He wasn’t allowed to be near the woman as part of his probation conditions.

He was charged with two felonies — partner-family member assault and criminal endangerment — but both charges were reduced in a plea agreement to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct, for which Judge Stadler sentenced Stansberry to 10 days in the county detention center.

Stadler also revoked Stansberry’s deferred sentence from 2007 and re-sentenced him to five years with the Department of Corrections, with three suspended. Stadler recommended Stansberry for the Connections Corrections boot camp program.

Stansberry was arrested again for partner-family member assault in September 2012 after his wife, a different woman from the earlier incidences, reported he had beaten her. She told officers they had gone for a drive up the North Fork Road on his birthday. After some drinks, Stansberry allegedly told her she needed to be disciplined for being disrespectful.

The woman said Stansberry grabbed her hair and began to punch her and call her profanities. She tried to block the blows without success. At one point, she said, Stansberry told her he was going to take her into the woods, rape her and kill her.

In a plea agreement reached with the Flathead County Attorney’s Office, the prosecution recommended a three-year prison sentence for the 2007 case and a consecutive five-year prison sentence with three suspended for the 2012 case. The state also agreed to dismiss its notice of intent to seek persistent felony offender status.

Flathead County District Court Judge Robert Allison sentenced Stansberry according to the plea agreement on July 18.