The bench warrant for Coleman's arrest has been signed by District Court Judge C.B. McNeil, and is now in the hands of the Sanders County Sheriff's Office.
According to charging documents filed by Sanders County Attorney Coleen Magera, on or about July 27, 2007, while he was still chief of police, Coleman “in his official capacity, performed an act in excess of his lawful authority, namely took a weapon, a .22 caliber rifle, with the purpose to obtain advantage for himself.”
The document lists eight possible witnesses, most of them Hot Springs residents. They include Jim Matthew, who took over as acting chief of police after Coleman was suspended with pay, and former Mayor Renea Keough, who suspended him and asked the Sanders County Sheriff's Office to investigate the chief.
On the advice of the city's attorney, Keough never said what that investigation entailed, saying she had been told Coleman's right to privacy exceeded the public's right to know.
Coleman's suspension was part of the start of a tumultuous time in the small town's city government. It came to include unhappiness on the part of some residents concerning the hiring of Keough's boyfriend, an admitted felon, as animal control officer, and a petition drive asking the mayor to either resign or face a recall.
Eventually both Coleman and Keough resigned, and the animal control officer position was eliminated.
After Coleman failed to appear before McNeil in Thompson Falls, Magera told the court that officials had been unable to contact him and requested the bench warrant for his arrest.
Possible witnesses in Coleman's case, according to the charging document, also include Hot Springs residents Melissa Herschler, Jeremy Cork, Mike Schendel and Dimas Rentaria, as well as Sanders County Sheriff's Deputy Doug Dryden and sheriff's office dispatcher Tiffany Broyhill.
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