Good Thing Coleman Left

ss · 11-13-2007, 02:38 PM

Im thinking that this was the coleman that left, if im wrong, let your stones be thrown.....

Three University of Montana football players appeared Monday in Missoula District Court on felony charges stemming from a drug-related home invasion and robbery that occurred last week near campus.

Running back Greg Coleman, 22, defensive end Mike Shelton, 21, and running back Jeramy Pate, 19, appeared before Judge John Larson over a live video feed from jail. The afternoon hearing was unusual because Monday was a government holiday and the courthouse was closed except for the single hearing.

The trio of Grizzly players were among five suspects who were arrested on felony charges of robbery, burglary and aggravated kidnapping. All have been suspended from the team indefinitely.

Former Grizzly cornerback Qwenton Freeman, who was dismissed from the team after his arrest in June for disorderly conduct, is also a primary suspect in the robbery and remains at large, having possibly fled to Oregon. Police are still trying to identify a seventh suspect who goes by the street handle “Dirty.”

Also charged in the case are Levi Woods, 20, and Mark Whetstone, 28, both of Missoula.

Police arrested the men at various times Sunday morning, intercepting Coleman and Shelton at the Adams Center as the football team arrived home following Saturday's game at Idaho State. Pate did not travel to Idaho with the team.

Four of the men remain in custody on $100,000 bail. However, Larson set bail at $150,000 in Whetstone's case because he allegedly planned and instigated the robbery.

Chief Deputy County Attorney Kirsten Pabst LaCroix requested high bail amounts due to the “violent and unpredictable nature of the offenses” and because of a “heightened risk to the community and to the informants in this case who fear retaliation.”

Even if the defendants post bond, Larson ordered that they remain in custody at the jail until a detention hearing before the judge of jurisdiction. Larson only presided over Monday's hearing because he was the only available district judge.

The charges relate to a break-in at 533 S. Sixth St. E., near the intersection at Arthur Avenue, in the early morning hours of Nov. 5. Witnesses and one defendant have described the robbery as a “drug rip,” or a “lick,” according to a 25-page affidavit that LaCroix filed Monday.

The document states that a group of six men wearing gloves and ski masks entered the home with the purpose of stealing marijuana from one of the residents. The group of men knew the resident kept marijuana at the house because Whetstone had previously purchased drugs there.

Shelton told police he was present as Coleman, Pate, Whetstone and “Dirty” were planning the robbery, saying that Whetstone “had a beef” with one of the alleged victims and “they were planning on taking either money or drugs ... to get even.” Shelton told police his job was to keep watch.

A female resident told police she was inside the house watching television when “six guys with guns and ski masks burst through the unlocked front door saying, ‘This is a stick up! Put your cell phones and money on the table and get into the fetal position,' ” records state.

One of the men pushed the woman's face into some pizza that was sitting on the floor, then duct-taped her mouth shut and bound her hands. Another man who entered the house was not wearing a ski mask, and the woman was able to provide police with a physical description.

Freeman allegedly Tasered the primary resident in his torso with a stun gun while “Dirty” used the butt of a .22-caliber pistol to beat the victim's head more than a dozen times. Another man carried a Tech 9 semiautomatic machine gun with a “clip curving out of it,” the woman told police.

After the assault, the male victim punched out a window and escaped.

An informant who knows the defendants and has cooperated with investigators said the break-in was the third house the men have either burglarized or robbed. He said the men took 3 pounds of marijuana from a house on Missoula's Northside, but could not provide an address. The men also stole a water bong and a snowboard from a separate house near campus, according to the informant.

The informant told detectives the men planned the robbery at a home on Lambros Lane, between West Front Street and Kiwanis Park, known to the suspects as “the Kiwanis House.”

Woods told detectives that Pate instructed him to buy ski masks and gloves at Wal-Mart, and that the men left after he returned with the items. The group of men returned to the same house after the robbery, the informant told police, and Freeman slapped Pate in the face and started calling him names because “(Pate) just froze when they got into the house and the victim was able to jump out the window,” records state.

Pate, Coleman, Shelton and Woods (who resides at the Kiwanis House) all are charged with aggravated burglary, two counts of accountability for aggravated kidnapping, and conspiracy to commit robbery. Whetstone faces the same charges, except he is charged with accountability for aggravated burglary.

Coleman, of Peoria, Ill., also faces a misdemeanor drug charge because police found marijuana in his Elrod Hall dorm room on Sunday.

Coleman was a redshirt in 2006, having suffered an early season injury. He transferred to Montana after two years playing football for Iowa State University. In 2003, while attending high school in Iowa City, Coleman was convicted of assaulting a police officer. Of the three teammates arrested, he was the only player to play in the contest against Idaho State. He had 19 carries for 104 yards and scored a touchdown.

Pate, of Las Vegas, was a redshirt at Montana last season. This was his first season playing for the Grizzlies. He lettered twice in football, basketball and track at Silverado High School.

Shelton, of Compton, Calif., transferred from the University of Arizona to Montana this fall. He had only started practicing with the Grizzlies in early October.

Last summer, several Grizzly football players made headlines following a shooting death in Southern California. In June, junior cornerback Jimmy Wilson turned himself in to California authorities investigating the death of his aunt's 29-year-old boyfriend. Wilson has pleaded not guilty to murder in the case.

Later that same month, teammate Qwenton Freeman, who California authorities suspect witnessed the shooting, was arrested over allegations that he threw a beer bottle at a man outside a bar. He was later acquitted on the charge, but still has two cases pending in Missoula Municipal Court.

Those cases accuse Freeman of slapping a 24-year-old Missoula woman outside of the same downtown bar where the alleged bottle-throwing occurred, and of choking his girlfriend and hitting her in the head, according to records. Freeman has denied all of the allegations.

In September, cornerback Timothy L. Parks was arrested on charges that he pointed a gun at a woman's head and slapped her while trying to collect a debt.

In the wake of the summertime arrests, UM worked to implement a new mentoring program, said Jim O'Day, UM athletic director.

Educational speakers were also brought in to discuss the power of good decision-making, and athletes were subjected to random drug testing, he said. In some cases, more thorough background checks were initiated for athletes and recruits.

“We talk about off-the-field conduct on a weekly basis, and have for the past five years,” said Grizzly coach Bobby Hauck. “Whether or not the players choose to listen is up to them.”

Hauck said he learned about the arrests from police early Sunday morning as the team's bus was somewhere between Butte and Deer Lodge. He says he did not have any information about the investigation prior to Saturday's game.

“I'm sickened by the news,” he said. “And the entire team is angry that these allegations will reflect on the efforts of more than 115 hardworking players.”

“We research and perform thorough checks on everyone we recruit,” Hauck said. “But that doesn't mean the guys can't make mistakes or go in the wrong direction once they're here.”

After reports of Wilson's arrest, the Missoulian learned that Freeman was arrested in April 2006 for assault and criminal trespassing, both misdemeanors, while a student at the University of Arizona. When he did not complete the required community service, warrants for his arrest were issued in Pima County, Ariz.

However, Freeman was allowed to join the UM football team and played cornerback during the 2006 season.

“I'm accountable for this,” Hauck said. “We've got 115 college kids on our football team, and I'm accountable for all of them. I get 20 hours of their time each week. That's what you get, and you try to do your best to educate them.”

Hauck said he remains a proponent of athletic dorms, where department officials could perform room checks at night. However, the NCAA abolished such dormitories after several incidents during the 1980s, Hauck said.

“It was a knee-jerk reaction, and it took away a real monitoring asset,” he said.

Reporter Tristan Scott can be reached at 523-5264 or at tscott@missoulian.com.