Freeland man violates order, faces prison

A 27-year-old Freeland man will be going to prison after his seventh conviction for violating a court order that bars him from contacting a teenage girl.

Joshua Kolbet pleaded guilty in Island County Superior Court May 21 to a felony violation of a no-contact order, a domestic violence crime.

Kolbet will be sentenced on June 18. Under the plea bargain, the prosecution and defense will recommend a two-year prison sentence and yet another no-contact order preventing him from contacting the girl for five years.

The victim, who was 15 years old at the time, reported last November that Kolbet had tried to contact her by calling her friend’s cell phone and asking to speak with her. Kolbet called over and over until the girl finally spoke to him; he allegedly threatened her.

Eerily, the victim and her friend saw Kolbet standing and watching them from about 100 yards away when they left the police department.

Just a few weeks prior, Kolbet and the girl had been arrested together in Skagit County.

According to a police report on the case, Kolbet and another man were accused of stealing a car from a man at gunpoint in the Lacey area and then stealing a baseball hat from a Mount Vernon gas station on Nov. 13, 2011. The girl was driving the car.

Kolbet was charged in Skagit County with felony violation of a no-contact order and two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm in the second degree, according to the Skagit County Prosecutor’s Office. His trial is scheduled for June.

Island County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Eric Ohme said Kolbet has now been convicted of violating a no-contact order a total of seven times and the Skagit County case could make it eight.

Last year, Kolbet was charged with attempted rape of a child after he and the girl were caught in an Oak Harbor hotel room together, but the charge was dropped because the girl was uncooperative with investigators.

The girl, formerly a Coupeville resident, had been listed with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 2009 after she and Kolbet went to Las Vegas.

He was arrested there for attempted burglary and she was sent home.

 

 

 

 

 

Contact Whidbey News Times Assistant editor Jessie Stensland at jstensland@whidbeynewsgroup.com or 360.675.6611 ext. 5056.

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