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Former law firm partner censured over sex with associate and legal assistant, stay-quiet offers

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 26, 2025, 8:55 am CST

A former partner at a Boise, Idaho, law firm has been publicly censured after he allegedly tried to entice an associate and a legal assistant to keep quiet about an incident in which he had sexual relations with them at the office.

The Idaho Supreme Court publicly censured Boise lawyer W. Dustin Charters in a Feb. 6 order, the Idaho Statesman recently reported.

The enticements involved money and a lightened workload, according to the public censure.

Charters was a mentor for the associate and supervised her work. She had joined the firm in August 2023, the month before the sexual incident, according to the censure order. The associate was 26 years old, and Charters was 37 years old, according to allegations cited by the Idaho Statesman.

Afterward, the order said, Charters offered compensation to both women if they did not report his conduct. He also offered to complete work for the associate that she could bill as her time and suggested that she falsely bill his completed work on a case as client development, according to the order.

Both women turned down the offers, and the associate did not falsely bill her time. They reported Charters’ conduct to the firm Sept. 26, 2023, three days after the incident, according to the allegations. Charters was fired two days later.

A stipulation in the case said Charters had no previous discipline and had acknowledged his misconduct, according to the Idaho Statesman. The stipulation also said he had received counseling and agreed to perform 100 hours of community service.

Charters did not immediately respond to the ABA Journal’s request for comment made in an email and a voicemail.

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An Idaho man was sentenced this week to a minimum of 45 years and a maximum of life in prison for murdering a man he says bullied him on Facebook — shooting him 17 times in the street outside the victim’s home — over “rumors” that the killer was an undercover cop.

Mark Bent, 43, was found guilty in December of first-degree murder and felony enhancement for the use of a deadly weapon in the commission of a felony for the September 2023 killing of Nikolas Bird, 23, outside his home in Bonneville County, according to East Idaho News. Bent, who was sentenced Monday, took to Facebook after the fatal shooting to explain why he took Bird’s life, saying it stemmed from online bullying related to his occupation. Bird’s family has denied the bullying accusation and says there’s no evidence to support it.

“I am saddened to say that I have committed some serious crimes today that will put me in jail for the rest of my life or lead to death,” Bent wrote after the shooting, according to prosecutors and East Idaho News. “As some of you know, shortly after I moved to Idaho Falls, I was slandered on Facebook with rumors of me being an Undercover Police Officer. Those rumors were followed by threats, harassment and more slander. Even after the facts were out that I am not a Police Officer of any kind, people still chose to believe it and continue to harass, threaten me and eventually look up where I live and work and post it on the internet.”

An Idaho teacher who admittedly sexually assaulted a teenage boy will spend up to two decades behind bars after taking a plea deal.

In August, Jessica Lawson, 36, pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual battery of a child. On Thursday, she was sentenced by Senior District Judge Stephen Dunn to between two and 20 years in prison — where she will have to attend sex offender treatment. Upon release, Lawson will have to register as a sex offender.

The plea agreement wipes out two charges of felony rape of a minor, as well as charges of felony delivery of a controlled substance and misdemeanor dispensing alcohol to a minor.

A 32-year-old man in Idaho will spend the rest of his life behind bars for breaking into his neighbor’s home and massacring all four members of the family — including two teenagers — on Father’s Day in order to “execute vengeance” after one of the teens allegedly exposed themselves to his wife and daughter.

First Judicial District Court Judge Barbara Duggan on Monday ordered Majorjon Kaylor to serve a sentence of life in a state correctional facility without the chance of parole for the 2023 quadruple murder of Kenneth Guardipee, 65; his daughter, Kenna Guardipee, 41; and her two children, Devin Smith, 18, and Aiken Smith, 16, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.

Kaylor — who claimed he “snapped” after the 18-year-old victim allegedly exposed himself to Kaylor’s wife and young daughter — in December pleaded guilty to four counts of second-degree murder over the violent rampage.

The sentencing hearing

During Monday’s hearing, Duggan upbraided Kaylor, calling his killing spree a “particular heinous event,” Spokane, Washington NBC affiliate KHQ reported.

Prior to the sentence being formally handed down, several of the victims’ family members were permitted to read impact statements.

“He killed an entire branch of our family tree,” David Silva, the grandfather of Aiken and Devin Smith, reportedly said. “Never any great grandchildren to watch grow up. I lost my best friend (Aiken Smith). He spent hundreds of hours volunteering throughout the community. An entire beautiful family taken by one person,”

Gerri Silva, the mother of Kenna Guardipee told the court that her family “lost three generations,” adding that she had not “seen, heard, or touched” her kids in the months since the murders.

Kenneth Guardipee’s brother, Joe Guardipee, read from a handwritten three-page statement, Boise, Idaho NBC affiliate KTVB reported.

“What a man you are, not only did you destroy my family, but yours as well,” he reportedly said. “You said you were protecting your children, let me ask you: Who’s protecting them now?”

A white supremacist prison gang member and his suspected accomplice accused of helping him escape from a hospital in Idaho in an attack that wounded three corrections officers are suspected of killing two people during their 36 hours on the run from law enforcement, authorities said.

Idaho officials Wednesday morning halted the execution of the man who murdered five people because they couldn’t insert an IV into his arm to give him the drugs to kill him.

Thomas Eugene Creech, 73, was set to die Wednesday, but prison officials said they stopped the process when three different medical professionals tried eight times to stick the IV into him but failed, Idaho Department of Corrections Director Josh Tewalt told reporters afterward. They tried in Creech’s arms, legs, hands and feet. The warden halted the execution just before 11 a.m.

Officials began the lethal injection process hours after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to issue a stay to halt the execution. But after the failed attempt, his lawyers filed another emergency motion for an immediate stay of execution.

“Given the badly botched execution attempt this morning, which proves IDOC’s inability to carry out a humane and constitutional execution, undersigned counsel preemptively seek an emergency stay of execution to prevent any further attempts today,” his attorneys said.

Republican lawmakers in Idaho have proposed a new law that would allow certain sex crimes against children to be punishable by death. The move positions the state to join Florida in adopting a controversial measure that conflicts directly with Supreme Court precedent saying such executions would violate the Eighth Amendment.

Passed 57-11 mainly along party lines Tuesday, House Bill 515 amends the statute covering lewd conduct with child under age 12 with aggravating circumstances to carry a penalty of capital punishment. Co-sponsor Rep. Bruce Skaug, a Republican, has said that the death penalty would be used only for the most heinous cases such as repeat offenders. The bill next heads to the Idaho Senate for committee review.

Initially, Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen, also a Republican, voted against the bill, but later reversed her decision once the vote had been ratified. Michelsen did not comment on the reasons for her changed vote. Prior to the vote, Mickelson told the Idaho Capital Sun that while she shares concerns over heinous crimes, that Idaho money would be better spent waiting for the Supreme Court to rule on other cases — referring to similar laws passed recently in Florida that are expected to reach the high court.

“There is a deep, dark, dark side in our culture, and it’s our job to protect the children,” said Skaug. “There are times when things are so wicked that retribution is appropriate.”

Skaug said that imposition of a death sentence under the law would be “very rare,” but promised, “but it will happen.”

He added, “And I say to you when you see that case, you read it in the newspaper you’re going to say this is the once case this needs to happen.”

Currently, Idaho law allows the capital punishment only in first-degree murder cases.

A 24-year-old father in Idaho will spend decades behind bars after he admitted to killing his newborn daughter, “violently” beating and shaking the infant to death in 2021. Kootenai County District Judge Barbara Duggan on Tuesday ordered Dyllan Dwight Towles to serve a sentence of 50 years in a state correctional facility for slaying the little girl, authorities announced.

Court records show that Towles last year pleaded guilty to one lesser count of second-degree murder in his daughter’s death. He will be eligible for parole after serving at least 25 years of his sentence.

According to a news release from the Kootenai County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, Towles on Saturday, Sept. 18, 2021, called 911 and told the dispatcher his 2-month-old child was not breathing. Upon arriving at the scene, first responders found the child “laying face up and unresponsive on the floor.”

While attempting lifesaving measures, officers said they observed visible injuries on the child, which included” a large circular bruise on her cheek, a bruise on her right leg, and bite marks on her left forearm, left ankle, and below her knee.”

The victim was rushed to the hospital where she was pronounced dead.

In response to questions about the events leading up to him calling 911, Towles said on Thursday everything was normal. On Friday his daughter slept excessively and on Saturday morning everything seemed fine. But later on Saturday, the victim began “to look off to the side and not respond when he (Towles) snapped his fingers,” the release states.

“When asked about the observed injuries, Towles claimed that he bit the child, ‘shook’ her ‘pretty violently’ approximately 20 times, and ‘played with her legs’ in an attempt to gain a response from the child after she suddenly became unresponsive,” prosecutors wrote.