VIDEO: Wilson is guilty

POLSON - A jury of Lake County residents found defendant Brent Arthur Wilson guilty on four charges Tuesday morning after a trial that lasted just a day and a half.

Deliberating for no more than one hour, the jury of nine men and three women found the 53-year-old defendant guilty of three felonies and one misdemeanor after a trial where the pro se defendant gave no attempt to defend himself. The jury found Wilson guilty of theft, deceptive practices and tampering with public records or information, all three felonies, and a misdemeanor count of criminal mischief.

"There's always that nervous anticipation while awaiting a verdict, and when you hear the defendant has been convicted of the crimes you believe he's committed, the feeling is relief," prosecutor Jessica Cole-Hodgkinson said after the verdict was read.

Cole-Hodgkinson and a jury of Wilson's peers eventually agreed that Wilson had indeed stolen a $380,000 home at 2948 Meadow Lane in Jette Meadows, Polson. Wilson then attempted to use the home, located on a 3.2-acre parcel of land, as collateral for a $125,000 loan from a Missoula-based financial company.

The pro se defendant seemed disinterested in the proceedings going on around him, seemingly reading literature from the Internal Revenue Service with his head down on Monday while witness after witness described the criminal acts Wilson had committed. During Tuesday's proceeding, which featured just one witness from the state and the state's closing statement, Wilson perused a copy of the Bible. Each time he was asked if he'd like to make peremptory challenges of jurors, ask questions of witnesses or call some of his own, he had the same answer.

"I appreciate the question," Wilson would say to presiding Judge Kim Christopher, "but I am only appearing as the beneficiary and that question should be directed to the trustee."

That trustee, according to Wilson, was Judge Christopher herself, whom he had attempted to name to the position during his previous appearances in her courtroom leading up to his trial. Christopher continued to deny the appointment, explaining instead that she was the third party presiding magistrate and could not, and would not, ever hold such a trustee position in a criminal court proceeding.

Wilson's insistence on providing no defense meant Cole-Hodgkinson continued to call witnesses who described the meticulous process Wilson went through in committing his crimes.

First witness Ed McCurdy described his surprise and confusion when he found the foreclosed Meadow Lane home he was listing in August 2009 for mortgage lender Freddie Mac had been entered and the locks changed. One of his four by eight foot "For Sale" signs had been removed and he subsequently found it in the home's garage with footprints over it.

When he found a sign in the front window of the house asking any interested party to call a number because the house had been foreclosed, McCurdy was shocked. He'd been reassigned to sell the house after it had initially been foreclosed and had only a four-day period where he did not check it, when the process can sometimes take "four months" he said.

"This sign threw me for a loop," McCurdy said. "I was thinking it was just a repost from Freddie Mac. I called the number, left a message and got no return."

McCurdy continued to call the number before he left a message saying he would call every five minutes until he got an answer. When McCurdy's managing broker called to tell him someone had threatened a restraining order for the inquiring phone calls, McCurdy became suspicious. His investigation led him to Fidelity Title Agency of Lake County and eventually the Lake County Clerk and Recorder's Office. After finding fraudulent documents Wilson had filed there, McCurdy turned the investigation over to the Lake County Sheriff's Office, but not before following Wilson to his trailer home in Polson. McCurdy said the "cloud" Wilson had put on the Meadow Lane property's title prevented the home from being sold or transferred.

Later during Monday's proceedings, witness and investigator Det. Rick Lenz read from Wilson's journals, which had been found in his trailer home after the sheriff's office obtained a warrant and conducted a search. Wilson's musings seemed to collaborate McCurdy's story.

"I drove to the foreclosure home up the hill from here, took down one of two realtor signs," Lenz read. "The other needs a tool to dig up...[I] woke up with how I was gonna secure restraining order on the latest rascal realtor to invade my land."

The journals had "Montana, the land" written on their covers, and the dates of the entries included the years 6011 and 6012 - consist with the chronology of Archbishop James Ussher, who believed the world is approximately 6,000 years old. Most entries seemed to be written to a higher being of some sort and were filled with religious references. They seemed part of Wilson's "100-hidel" plan, or what seemed to be his hope to steal 100 foreclosed homes.

Other witness testimony came from Carla Buys, an employee of the Lake County Clerk and Recorder's Office. Buys recounted Wilson bringing in documents to the office, including quitclaims and a title to land, to have officially recorded in August 2009.

"We put in the information," Buys said, explaining that it is not her responsibility to determine whether the documents are legitimate but to simply record the information. "They are not normal documents I've seen."

The documents included language describing the land as being on the "third planet from the sun" and that Wilson would own the property "until the return of yahshua messiah, ah-mein." Cole-Hodgkinson said after the trial that tampering with public information may have been his most serious offense.

"If you look at the consequences of the crimes, that's the one that's most far reaching," she said. "He wanted the system to validate his ownership, but he wouldn't acknowledge the system."

Juror Lindsey Matkovich, of Ronan, found the trial interesting and different, to say the least.

"I thought he was really rude to the court and really disrespectful to the judge," she said. "I didn't understand why he acted the way he did. Through the whole trial I tried to keep an open mind and believe he was innocent until proven guilty but as the evidence came out, it seemed he wasn't innocent. Once we went through the checklist, we found that the state had proved what it needed to."

Wilson had attempted to waive his right to trial in proceedings leading up to the July 12 trial start date, and his contemptuous relationship with Judge Christopher led to some interesting courtroom banter. His earliest appearances featured Wilson telling Christopher "you are not my God" and calling her by her given first name, Deborah. His later appearances saw him attempt to name her his trustee to an "all capitals entity BRENT ARTHUR WILSON" of which he was the sole beneficiary. Christopher maintained throughout that such language and actions had no place in a criminal proceeding.

Cole-Hodgkinson said that despite the guilty verdict, Wilson may very well appear in local district court again.

"There are at least two other properties in Lake County the defendant will be charged with [stealing]," she said.

Wilson will be sentenced Aug. 19, and faces up to 10 years in prison and/or a $50,000 fine for each of the three felonies he has been convicted of.