$500,000 bail remains for Rosen

NEWPORT – A motion to reduce the $500,000 bail for a man accused of second-degree murder, first degree kidnapping, first-degree rape and unlawful imprisonment was denied by Pend Oreille County Superior Court Judge Lech Radzimski in a hearing Thursday, Nov. 20.

John Lowell Rosen, 49, has been held in the Pend Oreille County Jail since June 5, when he was arrested after a woman was found chained inside a motor home and a body was found buried on the same Fertile Road property.

Rosen, who was not eligible for a public defender, retained Brett Billingsley, who argued that the $500,000 bond was too high. He said Rosen had a hearing disability and received VA payments because of it. Billingsley said he and Rosen have trouble hearing each other in the attorney room at the jail, where they talk by telephone, separated by glass.

He said they must talk loudly to understand each other. He said they were talking so loudly that it didn’t feel like they were having confidential conversations.

Billingsley, who had reserved on bail arguments at the initial court appearance, said that Rosen didn’t have a previous criminal record. Billingsley said the charges on their face were shocking, so he recognized that some bail was warranted. He said Rosen would agree to electronic home monitoring and presented statements from friends who said they would also monitor him. He asked that the bail be lowered to an amount Rosen could post through a bail bondsman.

Prosecutor Dolly Hunt said she opposed the reduction. She said bail was set at his first court appearance and that he is charged with several Class A felonies, the most serious felonies.

“The state’s continued position is that the court did consider the least restrictive conditions,” she said. She said because of the seriousness of the charges, there was always the concern that the defendant won’t reappear for future court dates.

“These are serious violent crimes that carry serious, lengthy sentences upon conviction,” she said. Hunt said witness intimidation was also a concern.

Radzimski said he was struck by the nature of the charges.

“You are facing incarceration for the rest of your life, at this time,” he said.

He said when he looks at the charges in the probable cause statement, the facts are bizarre.

“There’s acknowledgement that there’s a woman chained on your property, you take law enforcement to the location where you know a body is buried,” he said. He said the only comparable case since he has been on the bench is the Jason Fox homicide. He said Rosen’s bail was lower than the bail set for the men who were convicted at trial of felony murder in the Fox case.

“I think a half a million dollars was appropriate,” he said. He said that’s lower than bails have been set in previous Pend Oreille County cases. He denied the bail reduction based on the charges, the allegations, the conduct and the risk to the safety of witnesses.

According to the probable cause statement, Pend Oreille County Sheriff’s deputies were called by the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office for a welfare check at 334 Fertile Valley Road last June. Spokane authorities had been told of a possible homicide at that residence.

A man had told them a woman was chained to a tree at that Fertile Valley Road address and the property owner, Rosen, and a male named “Chaz” had shot someone on the property and dumped the body in a hole.

When deputies arrived, Rosen met them and told them he thought they were there because of a woman chained up. Rosen said there was a woman chained up but it was because they do role play. He took them to motor home where a 24-year-old woman was chained. In the presence of Rosen and deputies, she told them they were role playing. When Rosen left with another deputy to show him a bear carcass, she said she wasn’t role playing and was afraid. She said Rosen and a guy she only knew as Jesse had shot her boyfriend, Austin D. Tinsley, 40, and thrown him in the hole June 1.

She said Jesse, later identified as Jesse Still, and Rosen had raped her and left her chained in the motor home June 1. She picked Still out of a photo lineup and said he was who killed her boyfriend.

Deputies found the body of Tinsley in a 7-foot hole, covered with dirt when they came to do the welfare check June 6.

So far, Rosen is the only person who has been arrested for the alleged murder and rape. Still was sentenced to 36 months in prison June 5 in Spokane for being a felon in possession of a firearm. He has not been charged in the rape and murder at the Fertile Valley Road address.