Life sentence set aside for man convicted of kidnapping Savanna's baby

William Hoehn, 34, was sentenced to a suspended life sentence after pleading guilty to conspiracy to kidnap and to a charge of misdemeanor to the police following the death of LaFontaine-Greywind in August 2017..

A jury found Hoehn not guilty of conspiracy to commit LaFontaine-Greywind's assassination. The 22-year-old woman was pregnant when she was killed and her baby was cut from her belly. The baby, Haisley Jo, survived the ordeal.

Hoehn's former girlfriend, Brooke Crews, was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to kidnap.

At the hearing of Hoehn's October sentence, Cass County District Judge Tom Olson agreed that the prosecution request that Hoehn be declared a Dangerous Offender, which earned him a maximum sentence of 20 months. years in prison in prison for life.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court of the State, while upholding Hoehn's conviction, ruled that the dangerous offender designation was not appropriate in the case of Hoehn and ordered his life sentence to be rescinded. new sentence without dangerous offender status.

Thursday late, a new hearing on the sentence had not been scheduled yet.

Attorney Gloria Allred, spokesperson for LaFontaine-Greywind's family, said the victim's mother, Norberta Greywind, was unhappy with the Supreme Court's decision. "Norberta's main concern has been and continues to be Haisley Jo," said Allred in a statement Thursday.

"She (Norberta) thinks that Haisley Jo's life is in danger even before she is born and now thinks that with this decision, her granddaughter's life will be even more threatened," said Allred, adding that Norberta Greywind hoped that Hoehn's new sentence would be as much as possible.

Leah Viste, a prosecutor in the case, said the decision was disappointing, but added that the Cass County State Attorney's Office had known that there was a chance that the Supreme Court "do not see things like us."

She said prosecutors had a deadline to request reconsideration of the case, but that was not something they were planning for the moment.

Prosecutors had requested Hoehn's dangerous offender status on the basis of his previous conviction in a case involving a child with a serious head injury.

In its judgment, the Supreme Court stated that in order to grant Hoehn the status of dangerous offender – and thus extend his maximum sentence of 20 years to life imprisonment – it was necessary to conclude that he had been convicted of a crime seriously endangering the life of a person in danger and that he had previously been found guilty of a similar offense.

The Supreme Court went on to explain that the district court had not explained why it had found the Hoehn kidnapping offense similar to that which had been pronounced in 2012 on the grounds that it was a crime. abuse of children table hard enough to cause fractures of the skull.

"The underlying behavior to the kidnapping charge," continued the court, "included hiding the baby in a storage bag and helping Crews to deceive the forces of order and the baby's family … The underlying behavior of the two offenses is not similar. "

Kiara Kraus-Parr, Hoehn's attorney for the appeal, said on Thursday that she was confident in the appeal that the Supreme Court would rule in her favor on the issue of status. dangerous offender.

"The law was clearly on our side about this," said Kraus-Parr, claiming that the Supreme Court had asserted that there were not enough similarities between the offense of "murder" and "the law". abduction and previous conviction of Hoehn for child abuse.

In arguing that the conviction for Hoehn's abduction was similar to that for child abuse, prosecutors had argued that depriving LaFontaine-Greywind's child of medical care after birth was tantamount to harming a child.

Viste said Thursday that it was clear that the Supreme Court did not agree because it had adopted Hoehn's stance "has not actively caused harm to him." child in this particular case ".

The charges brought by Hoehn stem from the disappearance of LaFontaine-Greywind in August 2017.

LaFontaine-Greywind was eight months pregnant on August 19, 2017, when she was lured to the Fargo apartment in the north of the country, shared by Hoehn and Crews.

Crews, 40, testified that she had attracted the young woman to her apartment by promising her money if she could help her in a sewing project. She also testified that Hoehn seemed surprised when he returned home and discovered that she had cut LaFontaine-Greywind's baby from his body.

The crews testified that Hoehn then took a rope, had it wrapped around LaFontaine – Greywind 's neck and stated that if she had not died before, she was there now.

Hoehn admitted in court that he helped conceal the crime, but he did not know that Crews had planned to kill LaFontaine-Greywind and take his baby.

The police found the baby in Crews and Hoehn's apartment on August 24, 2017. The body of LaFontaine-Greywind was found on August 27, 2017 by kayakers on the Red River.

Ms. Kraus-Parr said on Thursday that she had not had the opportunity to speak to Mr. Hoehn since the Supreme Court decision had been rendered because he was detained in a federal prison and that access was difficult. Hoehn was transferred from North Dakota State Penitentiary to another prison earlier this year, but officials did not reveal where she was.

The Department of Penitentiary and Rehabilitation Affairs of North Dakota stated at the time that this measure had been taken for purposes of "preventive management", in relation to the nature of its crime against LaFontaine-Greywind.

Representative Ruth Buffalo of D-Fargo described the Supreme Court ruling as extremely disappointing and "revealing all the work that needs to be done to ensure justice for all in our country".

Buffalo, citizen of the Mandan nations, Hidatsa and Arikara, participated in the search for Savanna. Although it's been two years, she recently said that the memory was "still very fresh".

"Families deserve justice, communities deserve to be safe," Buffalo said.